Pilferage of the Caves: Fiction Based on a Story of Fractional Truths

Sitting in a restaurant in Tucson Arizona, I sat enthralled, listening as the Spanish gentleman nervously wove his verbal and enigmatic mosaic of the special few who were obsessed with an important discovery, and paid the ultimate price for that discovery. After many hours, he parted with this plea, “please put this in writing for Mr. Taylor’s sake.”

This story is set against the political and military realities of Central America amidst a not-too-distant backdrop of guerrilla warfare, intrigue, conspiracy, and murder.

It is a story of a young archeologist from Israel and his college friend from Guatemala. Over the years they became more and more obsessed with a quest to discover one of the century’s greatest archeological finds, i.e., The Southern Classical Libraries of the Mayan culture and its civilization.

Enter the world of intrigue, corruption, and lives destroyed as this story filled with fractional truths unfolds. Taking place between 1967 – 1980, the two men worked in cooperation with both Governments of Guatemala and Honduras. The Governments of Honduras and Guatemala agreed on many occasions that this major discovery would acknowledge that the archeologists involved were indeed the discoverers and they would have the authority to document and publicize this profound discovery.

The one caveat was that the discoveries needed to be confirmed and no one would be able to publicize the discovery of any Mayan treasure or announce to the world the identity of the valuable artifacts until the timing was appropriate.

I invite you to open this book and travel along. This story may be Charles Taylor and Arych Ben-Ami's last appeal for the truth.