CHARNAY (CLAUDE JOSEPH), DESIRE (1828 1915), French traveller and archaeologist, was born in Fleurie (Rhone), studied at the Lycee Charlemagne, and in 185o became a teacher in New Orleans, Louisiana. He travelled in Mexico under a commission from the French ministry of education, in 1857-61; in Madagascar in 1863 ; in South America, particularly Chile and Argentina, in 1875; and in Java and Australia in 1878. In 1880-83 he again visited the ruined cities of Mexico. Pierre Lorillard of New York contributed to defray the expense of this expedition, and Charnay named a great ruined city near the Guatemalan boundary line Ville Lorillard in his honour. Charnay went to Yucatan in 1886. His works include : Le Mexique, sou venirs et impressions de voyage (1863), and Les Anciennes Villes du Nouveau Monde (1885; Eng. trans. 1887). He elaborated a theory of Toltec migrations and considered the prehistoric Mexi can to be of Asiatic origin, because of observed similarities to Japanese architecture, Chinese decoration, Malaysian language and Cambodian dress, etc.
See Recueil de Voyages, etc., vol. xix. (1903).