Finding the Lost City

January 1, 2017 8:03 AM

'Lost City': The expedition that uncovered the fabled 'Monkey God' civilization buried in the jungles of Honduras The team traveled with three former British special forces members. Andrew Wood, who went by the name “Woody,” stepped up. The snake “exploded into furious action . . . striking in every direction, spraying venom.”

Previously

posted by Michele in California (15 comments total)

I can't really read anything about this without hearing Tim Curry's bad accent in Congo saying something about the Lost City Of Zingh.
posted by hippybear at 8:53 AM on January 1, 2017 [3 favorites]

I remember reading a bit on this previously, but it's fascinating to see something a little more substantial.

Also, for anyone who likes this sort of thing, David Grann's The Lost City of Z is worth a read; though it's more about a series of failed expeditions to find Percy Fawcett's "City of Z" (or just the remains of Fawcett himself). It's an interesting contrast to the story of the Monkey God.
posted by byanyothername at 9:28 AM on January 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

Came for the heroic snake decapitation, stayed for the horrific parasite.
posted by Devonian at 9:38 AM on January 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

Before I read TFA, is there an infographic about fedora and bullwhips, or is this a real story?
posted by wenestvedt at 9:41 AM on January 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Seems legit.

(Actually, it makes Indiana Jones look like a piker. The archaeologists brought former special forces members to bodyguard them instead of imagining themselves to be heroic badasses.)
posted by Michele in California at 9:53 AM on January 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Makes me think of the White City from Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family. but I guess any abandoned jungle city is going to do that, even on the wrong continent.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:50 AM on January 1, 2017

Yeah, don't google "mucosal leishmaniasis"
posted by gottabefunky at 12:13 PM on January 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

Before I read TFA, is there an infographic about fedora and bullwhips, or is this a real story?

Well, there is someone drowning in quicksand, and a face-eating curse that protects the relics. It's more like an Indiana Jones movie than the Crystal Skull.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 12:37 PM on January 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

Allll right -- I'm in!
posted by wenestvedt at 12:40 PM on January 1, 2017

It's fascinating that they are exploring a largely uninhabitable and deadly area, yet an ancient civilization saw fit to establish cities there. The average life expectancy was probably below thirty, yet cities were built all the same.
posted by Brocktoon at 2:00 PM on January 1, 2017

Do they call it a "Monkey God civilisation" because the inhabitants themselves called it that, or because the ruins were replete with statues thought to be depictions of a monkey-like god, or is it just some Indiana Jones crap?
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:34 PM on January 1, 2017

According to TFA, there are characteristic carvings of what seems to be a half-human, half-monkey deity in the ruins.
posted by Itaxpica at 2:48 PM on January 1, 2017

Where do you see that? I see one reference to one carving that "which may depict a corpse bound for burial, a captive awaiting sacrifice, or a half-monkey, half-human deity". In contrast, the area apparently has lots of jaguars, they found what is clearly the carved head of a jaguar, and consequently

The president of Honduras proclaimed the lost city has been found and would be called La Ciudad del Jaguar, the City of the Jaguar, for the jaguar head artifact found sticking out of the ground.

Apparently the locals called the ruins La Cuidad Blanca. So why isn't the book called The lost city, La Cuidad Blanca? Or The lost city of the carved Jaguar? I have a feeling that it's because "Lost City of the Monkey God" is a quasi-comical and colonialist phrase that sounds like something from an adventure serial. I'd love to be proved wrong.
posted by Joe in Australia at 3:26 PM on January 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

I was amused by this quote from an earlier Nat Geo story, "The most striking object emerging from the ground is the head of what Fisher speculated might be “a were-jaguar,” possibly depicting a shaman in a transformed, spirit state. Alternatively, the artifact might be related to ritualized ball games that were a feature of pre-Columbian life in Mesoamerica."

Makes me wonder how a Carolina Panthers football helmet will be interpreted in 1000 years.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 5:28 PM on January 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

I thought jiggers was bad until I saw mucosal leishmaniasis.
It's cold where I live. I like the cold, the cold is just fine.
posted by Gwynarra at 2:58 PM on January 5, 2017 [2 favorites]