In the article “Lost City Discovered in the Honduran Rain Forest” by Douglas Preston,  the findings of an expedition to the jungles of Honduras are detailed.  For decades, rumors of the “White City” or “The City of the Monkey God” have floated around among archaeologists, but a recent expedition has confirmed all of them.  The area surveyed was previously unexplored, and remains uninhabited to this day.   Researchers found many sculptures, mounds, plazas, and even an earthen pyramid, all in pristine condition.  The culture of the people who inhabited the city, though, is another mystery altogether.  These people have barely been studied, and archaeologists have yet to even name them.  Several of the figures recovered from the site depict a kind of animal-human hybrid, such as the “were-jaguar.”  It is thought that the artifact is meant to represent a shaman during a certain ritual, but other hypotheses still remain in consideration.  Though the site is far from modern civilization, the location remains undisclosed to prevent looting.  Many researchers claim that the site was previously discovered by an explorer by the name of Theodore Morde  in 1940, but his untimely suicide prevented the release of the site’s exact location.  In 2012, though, during an aerial survey, the ruins were again identified.  Later that year, a lidar scan was conducted, and several features altered by human activity were spotted.  A site cannot be confirmed unless it is examined from the ground, though, so a team of researchers were accompanied by Honduran Special Forces operatives to survey the site.  Once they arrived, it was extremely clear that the area had remained untouched by humans since pre-Colombian times.  Even the surrounding wildlife had no reason to be afraid of the researchers, for they had never interacted with humans before.  Upon further investigation of the site, the notion of a lost city dissolved completely.  It was obvious that the surrounding area displayed characteristics of an entire lost civilization.  Even though the discoveries appeared to be in pristine condition, many researchers fear that they will not remain that way for long.  Deforestation for grazing cattle threatens the surrounding rain forest, but due to a lack of funding, the Honduran government is unable to pass legislation that would protect the area.  At its current rate, the deforestation epidemic could reach the city in less than a decade.  Researchers are now seeking international assistance in protecting the area from these destructive factors.

Here’s the original article: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/03/150302-honduras-lost-city-monkey-god-maya-ancient-archaeology/