For Your Bucket List: A Trip to Honduras

The Lost City of the Monkey God, by Douglas Preston, described a fascinating and almost secret history. Everyone at our meeting had read and enjoyed the book! Thanks to Lydia for noticing the quality and potential for a Book Club discussion when she happened to read this book last year, and then for nominating it and leading our discussion.

Joyce characterized the book as having 3 sections, almost like 3 separate books: 1) Searching for the site of the lost city and the history of the legend, 3) the actual work and experience at the archaeological site, and 3) criticism of the expedition and medical sequelae.

A conversation during the meeting:

Marilyn asked how the archaeologists figured out what the carvings were meant to symbolize.

Claudia said she had the same question when reading the book, and then had later decided that the archaeologists had been trained to notice similarities between specific artifact markings and shapes that had been documented and photographed over the years. 

Dennis said that it seemed that a lot of the documentation of the artifacts seemed to be just made up. An example was that some artifacts were noted to be colorful, but these colors were barely, if at all, noticeable in the photos taken at the time when the items were described.

Cindy V. mentioned that at archaeological exhibits at museums, the onlooker often can’t figure out what something is until reading what is written about it on the exhibit label.

Joanne noted that the excavations were slow, and not much had been uncovered by the end of the book.

Marilyn agreed with Dennis’s observation that some of the history seemed to stem from imaginations. She exclaimed that it seemed arbitrary when a drawing of an animal was created after a dig had exposed just one bone.

Ah, the comments:

Pam said that while reading the descriptions of the expedition, she had felt like she was there in the forest.

Joanne agreed, stating that after reading about a day and night in the forest, she had felt like taking a shower.

On the lost city and large numbers of people who seemed to have deserted suddenly:

Pam thought interesting the idea that there had been a city and that large groups and numbers of people had left because of diseases. She suggested that many people might have left and scattered to other civilized places and that those who didn’t leave might have had fewer connections with other villages.

Joanne suggested that when word spread that deathly disease was spreading, other villages might have been unwilling to allow new people in.

For those whose interest was piqued and/or anyone who finds themselves in the vicinity, Lydia told us that in April, 2018 Honduras opened a new archaeological center to house White City finds.  Archaeology Research Center

Here’s another website from 2016 that has information about the lost White City: Web Page about White City Discoveries

There is more online. Search to your heart’s content.