Gonzanamá, the Lojan town where the 7-meter giants supposedly lived

Stories about giant human-like beings that have inhabited the Earth have been going on since time immemorial. The stories were given in Greek, Norse and even Basque mythology. Also, in the Hebrew culture the Bible talks about the Nephilim giants – hybrid race of the sons of God and the daughters of men – from which Goliath descends, with whom King David fought.

In other cultures stories about giant beings are also mentioned; Literature and cinema have also appropriated the subject, but we don’t have to go very far, since in southern Ecuador there is also a story about supposed humanoid beings several meters high. This is based on the work of the Catholic priest Carlos Miguel Vaca Alvarado (1912 -1999), who was the parish priest of the parish of Changaimina in the Gonzanamá canton (Loja).

Vaca, who was also a musician and archaeologist, collected in the 1960s -among other objects- what would be skeletal remains in the Changaimina sector, which in the indigenous language means “cemetery of the gods”. Even the GAD of Gonzanamá refers to this in a note from 2014; It is indicated that “more than thirty years ago a giant skeleton was found, almost seven meters high … unfortunately almost the entire skeleton left for the Smithonian Museum, in the USA …”.

The municipal website does not give details on what results the studies yielded or if they were ultimately completed. In its place a photo of a giant skeleton is located and it is indicated that “for our enjoyment, the territories where those giants lived remain, which are magical spaces, suitable for camping and to transport himself to a rich past ”.

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In any case, the skeleton shown is a creation made for the Mystery Park museum, later renamed Jungfrau Park, in Interlaken, Switzerland, devised by the Swiss writer Erich von Däniken, famous for his controversial theories of extraterrestrial influence on culture. primitive human.

There is no photographic record of the supposed giant skeleton found in Changaimina at the time of its discovery. However, in a television program broadcast several years ago -and that is on YouTube-, Vaca shows fragments of what is seen as bones, although in disorder, so it is difficult to decipher whether it actually corresponds to human anatomy, although the priest affirms that they did have the shape of a human skeleton.

Supposedly the “Museo del Padre Vaca” would have been looted after the priest’s death.

Apparently from the fragments that the priest kept, the skeleton was made for the museum by Erich von Däniken, who also has another history with Ecuador, specifically with the expedition to the Cueva de los Tayos.

Attracted by the history of the expedition, in March 1972 the writer met in Guayaquil with Juan Moricz, a passionate about anthropology and ancient languages. Thus, the Swiss had in his hands the notarial document of Moricz that detailed the supposed discovery of a “metal library that contains the chronological relationship of the history of mankind; the origin of man on Earth, and the scientific knowledge of an extinct civilization ”.

The controversial Swiss writer, whose ideas have been discredited by scientists and archaeologists, also made copies of the photographic material from the caves and, within months of the meeting, published the information in his controversial book The Gold of the Gods without permission.

Fossils

Far from theories about supposed giant men, in Ecuadorian territory, fossils of vertebrates such as Notoungulates, Xenarthros, Megaterios or Mastodonts have been found, among others. In addition, precisely in Loja, near the Yamana parish, the remains of the Yamanasaurus were found, which lived before the formation of the Andes. (I)