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The history of this skull is emblematic of many objects of American Indian collections on display in French museums that at some point passed through the hands of French collector and antiquities dealer Eugène Boban.

With its magnetic stare, the enigmatic way it was made, and the way it captures light, this rock-crystal skull, shrouded in questions, has come down to us from the early ages, from the ancient capital of the Aztecs, and from a famous antique dealer, Eugène Boban.

Likes its counterparts at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, and at the British Museum in London, one of these rock-crystal skulls is kept in Paris, and contains it its own share of mysteries, including the hole that pierces it.

The Aztec rock-crystal skull was considered to be the most enigmatic object, and the most charged with mystery, when it arrived among the collections of the Museum de L'Homme in 1878.
It is interesting to note what those in charge of the archaeological digs at the Aztec and Maya Mexican sites tell us about the symbolic meanings attached to the human skull. The pre-Columbian civilisations - and in particular the fourteenth century Aztecs until the Spanish Invasion in 1521 - were preoccupied with predictions based on observations of the sky and their astrological interpretation. Aztec cosmology was based on a cyclical vision of time, and on the principle of duality (night/day, sky/earth, life/death), which guaranteed the continuity of life and death.

Maintaining as it did a strong emotional charge, the skull was at the root of the most outlandish theories. One might think it was of interest only to people fascinated by esotericism, yet the object has also haunted intellectuals and artists. Man Ray photographed it, and in a letter to Paul Valéry, Saint-John Perse described the impression seeing the crystal skull had on him. He referred to it as an "impossible" object and wrote: "I would have loved to be able to give you a gift of the most beautiful man-made object I have ever seen".

Modern replicas are often sold on the Internet, and these mythical objects have now become one of the symbols of the New Age movement.
There is said to be an ancient Maya occult tradition, according to which twelve skulls with similar properties have been found in different areas of our planet. The Maya people affirmed that: "when the thirteenth crystal skull is found, the crystal master will be discovered, and a New Age of humanity will dawn."

At least eight "female" crystal skulls, in various places around the world have already been officially identified and classified, and it has been hinted in certain circles that twelve or even thirteen have been found, as told in the legend. The alleged "thirteenth" crystal skull was supposedly discovered in 2003, in Blauvac in the Var region of South East France, a few metres from Notre-Dame des Neiges and not far from Notre-Dame des Anges. For security reasons, it is allegedly now hidden in Carcassonne.