{"it":{"id":"SAM-TAY","kind":"site","sub":"Americas","name":"Cueva de los Tayos (Morona-Santiago)","place":"Ecuador","lat":-3.052,"lon":-78.205,"date":"natural cave (geological)","mat":"limestone/sandstone cave","nfacts":2,"tags":["Americas"],"sum":"In 1976 one of the largest cave expeditions of its era entered Cueva de los Tayos in the Ecuadorian jungle, with Neil Armstrong among them. They were checking a story about a library of metal plates hidden underground.","why":"Neil Armstrong went into a jungle cave in Ecuador to look for a library of metal plates.","src":[434],"nsrc":3,"yt":"Neil Armstrong went into a jungle cave looking for a metal library. What does it tell you that this story was taken seriously?","rel":["AFR-TAS"],"hook":"In 1976 Neil Armstrong entered an Ecuadorian cave hunting a library of metal plates."},"S":{"434":["Wikipedia: Cueva de los Tayos","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_de_los_Tayos"]},"rec":{"id":"SAM-TAY","alias":[],"ms":[{"f":"cave (claim record)","a":"entrance shaft / passages / chamber","v":"65 m; 4.6 km; 90 x 240 m","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia Cueva de los Tayos","yr":"2026","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia Cueva de los Tayos","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cueva_de_los_Tayos&oldid=1379169284","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"per staged W16K01 / W16S05","id":"M3466"},{"f":"1976 BCRA/Hall expedition","a":"finding","v":"no metal library found","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia Cueva de los Tayos","yr":"2026","m":"as stated","c":"Wikipedia Cueva de los Tayos","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cueva_de_los_Tayos&oldid=1379169284","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3467"}],"lab":[],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[{"a":"footprint","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"height","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"largest_block","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"block_mass","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"stone_count","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"slope_face_angle","r":"no published face/slope angle in sources reached (often n/a for non-pyramidal sites)"},{"a":"wall_batter","r":"no published batter survey in free sources"},{"a":"orientation","r":"no published azimuth reached"},{"a":"corner_precision","r":"no published precision survey in free sources"},{"a":"levelness","r":"no published levelling survey in free sources"},{"a":"rock_type","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"geochem_petro","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"quarry_source","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"mortar","r":"dry-stone construction or no binder analysis in free sources"},{"a":"tool_marks","r":"no tool-mark study in free sources reached"},{"a":"dating","r":"no absolute date extracted"},{"a":"coords_elevation","r":"no elevation row yet"},{"a":"volume_labor","r":"no volume/labour estimate in sources opened"},{"a":"lab_date_material","r":"no lab date with dated material in sources opened"},{"a":"hydrology_acoustics","r":"no published hydrology/acoustic measurement in sources opened"},{"a":"magnetic_radiation","r":"no published magnetic/radiation survey found (searched site name + magnetometry/radiation; Wikipedia, Google Scholar snippets)"},{"a":"excavation_history","r":"no excavation history row yet"},{"a":"artifacts_found","r":"no finds row yet"}],"dat":[],"aa":[{"id":"AA059","a":"metal golden library","who":"Juan Moricz; Erich von Daniken (Gold of the Gods 1973)","main":"natural cave","ms":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cueva_de_los_Tayos&oldid=1379169284","st":"contradicted","n":"1976 expedition found no library; staged single source","nl":1}],"ac":[{"v":"Tayos cave holds a metal \"golden library\"","who":"Juan Moricz; Erich von Daniken (Gold of the Gods 1973)","url":"raw/wave16_artifacts W16S05","b":"I","ce":"1976 BCRA/Stan Hall expedition (w/ Neil Armstrong) found no library"}],"me":[{"v":"natural cave system","ev":"1976 expedition reports via Wikipedia","s":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cueva_de_los_Tayos&oldid=1379169284"}],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"sub":[],"site":{"age":"natural cave (geological)","dm":"historical/stylistic (INTERPRETATION)","lab":"NO","weak":"no lab date opened","unesco":"","dens":"STUB"},"co":{"lat":"-3.05208","lon":"-78.20536","src":"Wikidata/enwiki (Q5192642)","agree":"disagree","b":"S","note":"Wikidata/enwiki (Q5192642) vs OSM node 10739483832 (Limon Indanza street POI) delta 0.2451 deg","osm":"https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/10739483832"},"src":[{"id":"W16S05","t":"Wikipedia Cueva de los Tayos","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cueva_de_los_Tayos&oldid=1379169284"},{"id":null,"t":"raw/wave16_artifacts W16S05","u":"raw/wave16_artifacts W16S05"},{"id":null,"t":"Wikipedia: Cueva de los Tayos","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_de_los_Tayos"},{"id":"VSAM-TAY-4","t":"BBC Mundo: La Cueva de los Tayos","u":"https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-42104844"},{"id":"VSAM-TAY-5","t":"El Universo (2019): Cuevas de los Tayos, 50 años de controversias","u":"https://www.eluniverso.com/noticias/2019/07/21/nota/7434213/cuevas-tayos-50-anos-controversias-misterios/"},{"id":"VSAM-TAY-6","t":"tayos.org: Cueva de los Tayos","u":"https://www.tayos.org/"},{"id":null,"t":"Snow, Barbara (1979), “The Oilbirds of Los Tayos”, Wilson Bulletin 91(3): 457–461, peer-reviewed field report from the 1976 expedition","u":"https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/wilson_bulletin/vol91/iss3/16"},{"id":null,"t":"Whalley, John, “The Los Tayos Expedition”, Yorkshire Ramblers’ Club Journal 11(38), 1979, first-hand account by a member of the caving team","u":"https://www.yrc.org.uk/journal-and-image-archive/journal-selector/yrc-journal-1979-vol-11-no-38/journal-v11n38p227/"},{"id":null,"t":"Dunnell, Tony, “Cueva de los Tayos”, Atlas Obscura (2019), popular travel summary, labelled secondary","u":"https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/cueva-de-los-tayos"}],"sum":"# Cueva de los Tayos: The Cave of the Oilbirds and the Metal Library\n\nOn 21 July 1969, a quiet foreigner walked into the fourth notary's office in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and had a deed recorded. As the newspaper El Universo told the story fifty years later, the world's eyes were on the Moon that week, where Neil Armstrong had just walked. The deed in Guayaquil pointed the other way, into the ground. It described the discovery of \"a metal library that contains the chronological account of the history of humanity, the origin of man on Earth, and the scientific knowledge of an extinct civilisation.\" Seven years later, the two stories met at the bottom of a cave in the Amazon.\n\n## The cave itself\n\nCueva de los Tayos lies on the eastern slopes of the Andes, in the Cordillera del Cóndor, in Ecuador's Morona Santiago province. Wikipedia places it about 2 km south of the Santiago River and 800 m west of the Coangos. El Universo says the main entrance is almost a kilometre from the Coangos. A 2008 GPS reading gave its altitude as 539 m, and the oilbird researcher Barbara Snow, who was on the 1976 expedition, gave 550 m.\n\nIt is named for the tayos, or oilbirds, night birds that eat fruit, nest in caves and find their way in the dark with echo clicks. Snow heard them clicking as the team climbed the entrance shaft. She found seed deposits under the colony at least 2.5 m deep, the mark of many birds over a long time. Local people told her they had taken 500 young oilbirds in April 1976, and she estimated at least 1,500 adults.\n\nThe Shuar people, on whose land the cave lies, have used it for as long as anyone remembers. Each year they climb down on vine ladders with bamboo torches to collect young birds. Visits today must be arranged with the Shuar federation, and Shuar guides lead explorers in. BBC Mundo reports that even they do not know every branch.\n\nThe figures for the cave vary. Snow recorded two main entrance shafts 55 m and 75 m deep. BBC Mundo gives a 70 m drop at the mouth, and Wikipedia gives the largest of three entrances as a 65 m shaft. Wikipedia describes 4.6 km of spacious passages, a chamber about 90 by 240 m, a vertical range of 201 m ending in a sump, and calls it the longest cave in Ecuador. The 1976 survey measured 4,900 m, and the Defence Ministry's first report put it at about 5 km.\n\n## The man with the deed\n\nThe foreigner was Juan Moricz, born in Hungary in 1923, who had lived in Argentina and came to Ecuador in 1964 to work in mining concessions. El Universo says he gained the trust of the Shuar, and that they let him into the caves at dates and in circumstances he never chose to specify. He reported the find to President José María Velasco Ibarra on 24 June 1969 before recording it at the notary.\n\nMoricz held that ancient Hungarians had reached South America and that South America was the cultural birthplace of humanity, Wikipedia records. In his account, one chamber held a polished stone desk with large books of gold, engraved with signs. He never gave the library's exact location, and he asked for money from anyone who wanted to check his claims.\n\nA small expedition set out with him on 26 July 1969, sponsored by Ecuador's tourism corporation. Its photographs showed tunnels and wide galleries crowned by what looked like straight lintels, which Moricz took as signs of ancient human work. The planned second stage, to confirm the library, never happened. A member of an earlier group that had hoped Moricz would lead them to metal plates later said he believed Moricz had never been to the caves at all.\n\n## From a hotel to a bestseller\n\nIn March 1972 the Swiss writer Erich von Däniken met Moricz at the Hotel Atahualpa in Guayaquil, saw the notarial deed and copied the photographs, El Universo reports. Months later the story appeared in The Gold of the Gods. Von Däniken wrote of mounds of gold, unusual sculptures and a metal library in tunnels cut by a lost civilisation with help from beings from space. The caver John Whalley recalled that the book described the caves as artificial, running the length of the Andes and cut with thermic lances.\n\n## The great expedition\n\nThe book caused such a stir in Europe that a British-Ecuadorian expedition followed in 1976. It was proposed by Stan Hall, a Scottish engineer and amateur archaeologist, and funded by the two governments. El Universo counts 62 British and 40 Ecuadorian members, among them the Ecuadorian biologist Laura Arcos, and reports that Britain put in a million pounds while the Ecuadorian army cleared a landing zone and moved 45 tonnes of equipment. Neil Armstrong was its honorary president. He went down into the cave in August 1976.\n\nAsked in Quito which was more exciting, the Moon or the cave, Armstrong said they were hard to compare, but in both cases one goes into unknown places and learns new things.\n\nMoricz did not go. He told a journalist that Hall had invited him, but that talks broke down when the British refused his conditions, among them being sole leader and leaving any find in place. He had predicted the outcome: the scientists would find interesting things, he said, but he doubted they would find the library.\n\nThey did not. The cavers mapped the system and found classic water-cut passages, a huge stalagmite, and a sump at the water level expected from the Coangos. Whalley noted that what the photographs called molten rock looked like flowstone, and the \"giant masonry\" like ordinary limestone joints. Near the end, the archaeologist Padre Pedro Porras dug up pottery and seashells at the foot of a daylight shaft that he judged thousands of years old. The Defence Ministry's report concluded that the caves were \"not an archaeological monument, as has been claimed, but a geological one.\"\n\n## Why the walls look made\n\nThe geologist Theofilos Toulkeridis offered BBC Mundo an explanation for the cave's strangest feature. It is a karst cave, he says, but with sandstone in it, unusual in Ecuador and the region, and that produced a different kind of weathering, with smooth flat walls that look as if people made them. Deep inside is a squared opening shaped like a long door, now called the Moricz portal. Toulkeridis accepts that traces of ancient people have been found, from between 500 and 1500 BC, but not that the cave is artificial. Similar shapes occur in other caves, he says.\n\n## The story that will not close\n\nThe legend did not end in 1976. Wikipedia reports that the lead researcher met Moricz's Shuar source, who said the team had searched the wrong cave and that the real one was secret. Hall never claimed to have seen the library, yet he later repeated the claim that golden plates lie in the Tayos caves. Another man, Petronio Jaramillo, told his own version, with shelves of metal books and a crystal coffin; his wife said she never believed him. The researcher Manuel Palacios believes that reports and film from 1976 were withheld. Other writers, BBC Mundo notes, have called some of the metal plates shown as evidence fakes made of tin and brass.\n\nA notary's deed, a bestseller and a hundred-strong expedition later, the cave has given up oilbirds, old pottery, smooth sandstone walls and a portal that geology can explain. If an expedition with an astronaut aboard could not close the case, what kind of evidence would?","qs":["Neil Armstrong went into a jungle cave looking for a metal library. What does it tell you that this story was taken seriously?","Believers say the team searched the wrong cave. What evidence would ever settle a case like this?","Who owns a legend once it spreads beyond the people who live by the cave?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Corredor_-_Cueva_de_los_Tayos.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Corredor_-_Cueva_de_los_Tayos.JPG","title":"Corredor - Cueva de los Tayos.JPG","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"MezzoforteF","cap":"Corridor that measures about 200m. You can see straight walls and geometric geometries in the rock."},{"src":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/Puerta_geometrica_-_Cueva_de_los_Tayos.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Puerta_geometrica_-_Cueva_de_los_Tayos.JPG","title":"Puerta geometrica - Cueva de los Tayos.JPG","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"MezzoforteF","cap":"Los Tayos Cave (Ecuador). Limestone wall with horizontal stratification and vertical joints. You can see the one that leads to the South passing to the main roo"}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":[{"v":"65","u":"m","h":"Largest shaft, per a travel summary","s":[166]},{"v":"natural cave","h":"Dated to: natural cave (geological)","s":[166]}],"hs":{"166":["Wikipedia: Cueva de los Tayos (and sources cited there)","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cueva_de_los_Tayos"]},"lh":{"s":"img/h/SAM-TAY.webp","w":1024,"h":683,"o":"https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/85/Corredor_-_Cueva_de_los_Tayos.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled"}}