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NEWS October 2024
OCTOBER 2024 The recent cyber attack on the Internet Archive is deplorable and can be reasonably compared with the repeated burning of the Great Library of Alexandria. I have used the Wayback Machine extensively, but, until the full extent of the permanent damage is clear, I am unable to assess its effect on Atlantipedia. At […]Read More »
Joining The Dots
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Ecuador
Hall, Stan
Stan Hall with Fr. Crespi
Stan Hall (1936-2008) was a Scotsman who has authored, Tayos Gold – The Archives of Atlantis[360] in which he resurrects the old legends of an extensive cave systems in the Andes.>allegedly stretching for hundreds of miles.<
Harold T. Wilkins discussed these ancient tales at length over sixty years ago[363]. However it was one Juan Moricz who was responsible for renewed interest in the Ecuadorian cave system with his claim to have discovered in them a library of metallic books.
Erich von Däniken, the champion of the ‘ancient astronaut’ theory, who embellished it to produce another bestseller,>The Gold of the Gods [272]. In it he claimed to have seen a library of gold plates. This was just a collection of lies(g).
Philip Coppens wrote a paper on the caves, which included a lot of background information(h).<
In 1976, Hall, who also met Moricz, organised an expedition of over a hundred people that included the astronaut Neil Armstrong, to explore the Tayos Caves in Ecuador. While in Ecuador, Hall met Fr. Crespi, the then guardian of the so-called Crespi collection of strange artefacts. Although no metallic books were discovered Hall proceeded to publish his book, which claims to link the undiscovered books with Atlantis. Such wild conjecture is totally unjustified. A website dedicated to Hall’s work is available(a).
In 2017, Hall’s daughter, Eileen, was promoting a documentary about her father’s 1976 failed expedition to the caves and, incredibly, was trying to revive interest in organising another expedition to find the Tayos Gold!(b)
A recent (2018) two-part(c)(d) sceptical review of the whole ‘Tayos Gold’ saga offers more information.
>2020 brought us Mysteries of the Tayos Caves [1768] by Alex Chionetti, another wannabe Indiana Jones, who tries to revive interest in the Ecuadorian caves and the various failed, and sometimes non-existent, attempts to locate the library of gold books once reputed to have been seen there. Jason Colavito found the book “maddeningly incoherent”(e).<
(a) https://web.archive.org/web/20170331172042/https://www.goldlibrary.com/index.html
(c) https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4637
(d) https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4638
>(e) Review of “Mysteries of the Tayos Caves” by Alex Chionetti – JASON COLAVITO
(f) Cueva de los Tayos – Wikipedia
(h) “As We Walked Through The Tunnels of Gold…” (bibliotecapleyades.net)<
Crespi Collection
The Crespi Collection is a remarkable assortment of many thousands of artefacts gathered together by the late Father Carlos 
Crespi Croci (1891-1982), an Italian Salesian monk who did missionary work among the natives of Cuenca, Ecuador. The collection of objects includes gold, silver and a variety of alloys together with ceramics and tablets with unusual writing. The local Indians who allegedly found them in subterranean caves brought these goods to him. There is no doubt that Fr. Crespi knew that some of the artefacts offered to him were modern, made by locals who were able to get a little bit of charitable assistance while preserving their dignity. Father Crespi never properly catalogued them and over time a number of items were apparently stolen. At present some of these artefacts are stored in the church of Maria Auxiliadora in Cuenca. The caves referred to were apparently located by the late Juan Moricz in 1965. Erich von Däniken wrote about the caves and Moricz in one of his fantasy books, Gold of the Gods.
Further details about Fr. Crespi and his collection can be read>>in a 2022 paper by ‘Mettalicman’ bringing the story more up to date(g).<<
A somewhat eccentric website(a) from Stanley Hall expands on the story but without any real supportive proof. Among the collection is what appears to be a parapegma or calendar of a type developed in Greece in the 5th century BC.
Many wild claims have been made about this strange assortment, including a link with Atlantis. Richard Wingate devoted a large section of his book, The Lost Outpost of Atlantis,[059] to the Crespi Collection.
It was over twenty years later that Wingate again wrote at length about Crespi in his 2011 book, Atlantis in the Amazon[771]. He describes how Crespi had much of his collection taken from him and recounts his last meeting with Fr. Crespi shortly afterward, leading me to wonder why it took nearly thirty years to record this story.
Nevertheless, a 2015 blog from Jason Colavito(b) offers evidence that the objects in question were fakes and that the elderly Father Crespi was unable to distinguish between tin and silver or brass and gold. He also recounts how Erich von Däniken exploited Crespi’s ‘collection’ and fraudulently claimed to have visited the caves mentioned by Juan Moricz in Gold of the Gods[272].
parapegma
In 2016, April Holloway on the Ancient Origins website(c) offers further evidence that most of the objects purporting to be of trans-oceanic origin or influence are fakes. However, while I fully accept that most of the objects are fakes, there are a few that are more difficult to explain.
One of these(d) is so remarkably like Roman parapegmata, that I find it difficult to casually dismiss it! Parapegmata are a type of calendar originally developed in Greece during the 5th century BC(i). A full dissertation on the subject was published by Daryn Lehoux with the first chapter available online(h) as well as a Bryn Mawr review(j).
In a follow-up to Holloway’s article, Ancient Origins co-founder, Dr Ioannis Syrigos, decided to investigate further the matter of gold artefacts missing from the collection shown to Holloway. He reports that he was met with obfuscation and threats(e).
Vladimir Pakhomov also commented on the parapegma of Fr. Crespi and concluded, rather hastily in my opinion, that people “in ancient Rome, Greece, Egypt and South America all were using the same calendar – parapegma.”
Commenting on Syrigos’ report, Jason Colavito has suggested that the missing gold pieces were a consequence of corruption or greed rather than conspiracy(f).
(a) See: https://web.archive.org/web/20060221130241/https://www.goldlibrary.com/index.htm
(b) https://www.jasoncolavito.com/blog/father-crespi-and-the-toilet-tank-float-of-the-gods
(d) https://dominorus.majestic64.com/parapegma.html (link broken)
(g) The Crespi Ancient Artifact Collection of Cuenca Ecuador – Metallicman *
(h) 0521851815 crop.pdf (cambridge.org)
(k) South American Calendar Parapegma (archive.org)