Explorer Douglas Savoy, 80, dies

RENO -- Douglas Eugene "Gene" Savoy, a famed American explorer who discovered more than 40 lost cities in Peru and led long-distance sailing adventures to learn more about ancient cultures, died of natural causes Tuesday at his Reno home, his family said Saturday. He was 80.

Dubbed the "real Indiana Jones" by People magazine, Savoy was credited with finding four of Peru's most important archaeological sites, including Vilcabamba, the last refuge of the Incas from the Spanish Conquistadors.

Hiram Bingham considered Machu Picchu the Inca's last stronghold after he discovered it in 1911 in the Peruvian Andes. But scientists agree the lost city's actual discovery was made by Savoy in the mid-1960s in the Peruvian rainforest.

Over the next 40 years in the jungles of Peru, Savoy went on to discover more than 40 stone cities of a mysterious pre-Inca civilization known as the Chachapoyas. Among them were Gran Pajaten, Gran Vilaya and Gran Saposoa.

"Scientists thought the existence of these cities and settlements in the Peruvian rainforest was all a myth until my father found them," Savoy's son, Sean, 34, said Saturday. "His discoveries opened up a whole new area of jungle archaeology that didn't exist before.

"Many people have said that he was probably the last of the great living explorers and I agree. They don't make them like that anymore," he said, adding his father suffered hepatitis, was bitten by snakes and chased by guerrilla soldiers during his explorations.

Savoy also took to the sea to test his theories that the Incas, Aztecs and other ancient civilizations had contact with each other. From 1977 to 1982, he used a 60-foot schooner to research possible trade routes used by ancient civilizations in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Savoy was criticized by some scientists and academics because of his lack of an academic degree, said Sean Savoy, who worked with his father for 19 years in the field.

"Ultimately, no one can deny what he accomplished. He was an independent thinker and his own breed. He was self taught," he said, adding his father worked with archaeologists and other experts.

Gene Savoy wrote dozens of books, including 1970s "Antisuyo: The Search for the Lost Cities of the Amazon" about his early discoveries in Peru, and 1974's "On the Trail of the Feathered Serpent" about some of his sea journeys.

But the bulk of his books and articles concerned another consuming passion: religion.

As founder of a new theology known as "Cosolargy," he established the International Community of Christ, Church of the Second Advent. He taught that the Second Coming of Christ had already become a living reality through a miraculous celestial event.

"I think during his lifetime he'll best be remembered as an explorer," Sean Savoy said. "But his greatest legacy will come after his life and it will be his contribution to religion. He created an entirely new system in the search for spiritual truth."

Savoy was born in Bellingham, Wash., and served as a Navy gunner during World War II. He later was a journalist and newspaper editor in Portland, Ore.

He moved to Reno in 1971 and was founder of the Andean Explorers Foundation & Ocean Sailing Club based in that city. The organization sponsored many of his explorations.

Survivors include his children, Gene Jr., Sean and Sylvia Jamila Savoy, and three granddaughters, all of Reno.