Genovés, Santiago

Santiago Genovés Tarazaga (1923-2013) was a Spanish anthropologist with a great interest in pre-Columbian Mexico. He was part of the Ra I and Ra II expeditions led by Thor Heyerdahl that crossed the Atlantic in a reed boat at the second attempt. He has written many books and essays on scientific subjects as well as a number of papers of literary criticism. But is probably best known for a joint paper with Romeo Hristov^(b)(c) published in 2000 in Ancient Mesoamerica^(a)  in which they identified a terracotta figurine discovered in 1933 in Mexico as clearly Roman adding to the ever growing body of evidence for probable pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic contacts. The existence of such early oceanic travel is fundamental to a number of Atlantis related theories, particularly those that promote Egypt as a colony of a  MesoAmerican Atlantis or where a mid-Atlantic Atlantis is claimed to have provided a stepping-stone between the Old and New Worlds.

^(a) http://econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/calix.htm

^(b) Romeo Hristov (unm.edu) *

^(c) https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/romeos-head-6407887 *