White City of the Monkey God
Best address ever!
Lost WHITE CITY of the MONKEY GOD found after 500 years
In a scene straight from Raiders of the Lost Ark, archaeologists believe they have found the fabled lost White City of the Monkey God in Honduras. Aided by former Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers, the team of scientists uncovered the location in the Mosquitia jungle, along Honduras's eastern coast, over 500 years after the …
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 13:17 GMT Anonymous Coward
Threepwood!
The researchers escaped the cannibals and left the banana picker in the locked hut, fed the monkey and went to the Great Monkey Head, where they pulled the middle nose on the totem pole. They got the wimpy little idol and returned to the cannibals, retrieved the banana picker and returned it to Herman to get the key. Apparently.
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 13:50 GMT Kane
Re: Primeval rain forest?
"I feel National Geographic might need to look up the meaning of "primeval". It can hardly be primeval forest if 500 years ago it was a city."
Yeah...you may have misread that bit...
"The rain forest surrounding the area is so primeval that the animals appear never to have seen humans before, reported the National Geographic."
Plus, for bonus points...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old-growth_forest - Particular extract...
Depending on the forest, this may take anywhere from a century to several millennia. Hardwood forests of the eastern United States can develop old-growth characteristics in one or two generations of trees, or 150–500 years. In British Columbia, Canada, old growth is defined as 120 to 140 years of age in the interior of the province where fire is a frequent and natural occurrence. In British Columbia’s coastal rainforests, old growth is defined as trees more than 250 years, with some trees reaching more than 1,000 years of age. In Australia, eucalypt trees rarely exceed 350 years of age due to frequent fire disturbance.
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's wikipedia....
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 14:46 GMT Bunbury
Re: Primeval rain forest?
Err, no.
From the NG article "When the images were processed, they revealed unnatural features stretching for more than a mile through the valley. When Fisher analyzed the images, he found that the terrain along the river had been almost entirely reshaped by human hands"
and
"The valley is densely carpeted in a rain forest so primeval that"
The valley has been almost entirely reshaped - it is impossible to do that and retain the primeval forest. It's sloppy writing from the magazine, which is poor when it has run articles in the past about how the Amazonian rain forest was once heavily agricultural in parts.
Also (grammer nazi alert!), use of the style "so primeval" implies one forest can be more primeval than another. It can't. A forest is either 'of the first age' or it is not.
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 21:57 GMT bep
Re: Primeval rain forest?
"Depending on the forest, this may take anywhere from a century to several millennia. Hardwood forests of the eastern United States can develop old-growth characteristics in one or two generations of trees, or 150–500 years. In British Columbia, Canada, old growth is defined as 120 to 140 years of age in the interior of the province where fire is a frequent and natural occurrence. In British Columbia’s coastal rainforests, old growth is defined as trees more than 250 years, with some trees reaching more than 1,000 years of age. In Australia, eucalypt trees rarely exceed 350 years of age due to frequent fire disturbance.
Yeah, yeah, I know. It's wikipedia...."
Well, since we're trusting Wikipedia:
'The Huon Pine is a conifer, endemic to Tasmania, and the only member of the genus Lagarostrobos. It is Australia’s oldest living tree species and one of the oldest |living organisms on earth. Individuals have been known to reach an age of 3,000 years.'
Australia is quite a big place, with quite a few different tree species, not just gum trees.
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Thursday 5th March 2015 08:14 GMT Michael H.F. Wilkinson
Re: They dared to defile the White City of the Monkey God?
Yeah, but don't forget the Monkey God's Mum (MGM). She is going to go ON and ON and ON to the poor Monkey God:
MGM: "See! I TOLD you to keep your forest tidy! You are ALWAYS losing things in it!"
Monkey God: "But, mum, I ..."
MGM: "I mean, HOW can you lose an entire CITY! This never would have happened to your cousin Kevin!"
Monkey God: "But mum, ..."
MGM: "Just think of what your dad will say when he comes home, and he hears humans have found it for you"
Monkey God: "Yes, but mum, ..."
MGM: "And I bet you haven't said thank you to those nice men from the SAS and National Geographic for finding your city again"
Monkey God: "But,..."
MGM: "Now go to your room and tidy THAT, or it's no human sacrifices for you for the next 500 years!"
Monkey God: "Yes, mum. Alright, mum"
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Monday 4th May 2015 16:57 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: They dared to defile the White City of the Monkey God?
I'm outraged!
Kill all the non-believers!
Ring the Daily Mail
Outrage - fine if you like that sort of thing
Kill all the non believers - well you are entitled to your opinion, its a tad extreme though
Ring the Daily Mail - My God man! Have you lost the plot? That's just a step too far!
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 14:45 GMT Anonymous Coward
I can't believe there is a pyramid too! Finding this city is pretty much the exact scenario I imagined for my entire life as a kid. It was either being a real life Indiana Jones or...well I could tell you what I do today, but if it's not being a real life Indian Jones, would you really be interested...
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 15:42 GMT Stevie
Bah!
Well not for nothing, I led a team to this very site about three and a half years ago.
We recovered a number of artifacts that hinted at an antediluvian history of the Earth not in accord with that of mainstream historians. Some of the carvings on one particular urn were ... disturbing, and many of the team suffered nighmares after viewing them.
Our doctor developed a pervasive feeling of being watched from the surrounding forest and began wandering off into the bush in search of his tormentors, costing precious time when search parties had to be sent to find him and bring him back to camp. During our second week on site he simply vanished.
Then we opened up a sealed wooden door and found a surprisingly well-preserved mummy of a reptilian humanoid. Such a repulsive sight did this being convey as it lay there on the massive stone slab that two of the team simply fainted dead away. Though dead for uncounted eons it seemed to exude a palpable miasma of malevolence. The nightmares that night were terrible.
No-one would work the next day, and I almost had an outright mutiny when I tried to insist we re-enter the tomb. I spoke calming words to my students and fellow Miskatonic professors that seemed to be calming things down when naturally the mummified horror from beyond time chose that precise moment to rise from the dead, emerge from its tomb and ill us all.
I congratulate the latest expedition on escaping a TPK.
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Thursday 5th March 2015 08:44 GMT P. Lee
Re: Bah!
>Thank goodness you were all only 'illed'. That bastard could have murdered you all!
The last entry in the diary reads, "The others are now all gone, I'm the only one left. They fell like flies to dysentery, then the flies fell on them and the flies got dysentery. We've been illed to death by the Mummy's cures, I'm sure of it!"
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 16:21 GMT DropBear
Re: Yeah man
If you let loose your pyramid, won't it wander until it eventually makes its way out of the jungle?
Not if it stumbles upon an ancient city first, then it just settles down in it. There just is something about ancient cities pyramids can't resist - all the ones we know of were found lurking in one...
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 17:17 GMT Bunbury
Re: So how does this LIDAR work?
I believe it's the latter. The kit seems to work on the basis of chuck out data points like billy-o (1 billy-o = 1bo = 100,000 per second) and then process to discount reflections from foliage. Given that the aeroplane is moving, some will hit leaves and some will hit the ground. Then Mr computer works out which is which and can just display the land underneath the trees, if you want to see the land. Very impressive results. Though I imagine the denser the canopy the more difficult it is to get detail.
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Wednesday 4th March 2015 19:02 GMT Destroy All Monsters
WTF is this?
Explorers have attempted to uncover the extreme wealth of "Ciudad Blanca", so called because its buildings and a wall around it were of white stone, since the time of Hernán Cortés and the Spanish conquistadors in 1520.
How can there be a city of "extreme wealth" (probably relative) somewhere in Honduras just like that? There needs to be a supporting civilization and vast tracts of land to support that city to the point where asking a local would most likely result in finger-pointing into the general direction of said city. What gives?
As an example, it's not like the location of Mesopotamian cities was particularly unknown (indeed Mongols amused themselves to "un-wealth" those cities something fierce, having evidently easily detected them).
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Thursday 5th March 2015 00:18 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: WTF is this?
Wealth doesn't mean money, eg precious metals and jewels. Oddly enough, some people prize knowledge over money. That's a good thing. Otherwise we'd probably not have come down from the trees.
As for the vast tracts of land, jungles grow. Fast. And it's had in the order of 500 years with, if the report on the animals reactions to humans is to be believed, no human, or at least almost no, human presence in much of that time to grow over and hide everything that might be seen as human created or modified.
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Thursday 5th March 2015 03:40 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: WTF is this?
Wealth doesn't mean money, eg precious metals and jewels
How is the life in My Little Ponyland?
Oddly enough, some people prize knowledge over money.
Oddly enough, Conquistadors didn't. Oddly enough, "wealth" never meant "large libraries". "Excuse me peasant, would you indicate the shortest path to the next library or do you want me behead you after a short introduction to Christianity?". Yeah, I think not.
As for the vast tracts of land, jungles grow. Fast.
Relevance?
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Friday 6th March 2015 02:42 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: WTF is this?
"Oddly enough, Conquistadors didn't. Oddly enough, "wealth" never meant "large libraries". "Excuse me peasant, would you indicate the shortest path to the next library or do you want me behead you after a short introduction to Christianity?". Yeah, I think not."
I suspect you didn't understand what I was referring to. The explorers referred to the "extreme wealth" as per the quote from the article in your OP. Since they are almost certainly archeologists, then "wealth" to them almost certainly referred to the "wealth of knowledge" to be gained from both the city itself and any artifacts they may uncover.
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Thursday 14th May 2015 13:15 GMT Loyal Commenter
Re: WTF is this?
I don't think the conquistadors just strolled into the centre of the South American continent through thick rainforest and took everything they found. For starters, it's quite difficult to travel through thick rainforest when there are no roads, new and exotic diseases to catch, unfriendly natives, and several thousand miles of it to cover when hauling back whatever you happen to find. If the city in question was already abandoned, it would have already been far less accessible than those that were still populated and actively fighting the Spanish invaders.
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Thursday 5th March 2015 11:58 GMT Sarah Balfour
Re: "Ethnobotanist"?
Ethnobotany is the study of the relationship.between people and plants, just as ethnozoology is the study of the relationship between humans and nonhuman species.
A botanist is merely concerned with the study of plants and their classification in relation to other plants. Without ethnobotany, we'd not know about the miracle of cannabis for example, nor opiates.
Ethnobotany is a very real science. Think of all the hallucinogenics and psychedelics we now know exist.
I'll direct you - and anyone else interested - to http://www.erowid.org.
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Thursday 5th March 2015 08:17 GMT All names Taken
(Optional) Tsk you humans
Perhaps wealth in those times placed more emphasis on health, family, food, ... since Banks were not readily available and holes in the wall not really reliable.
The stock exchange did not really get under way for quite a while and as every ruralist knows, you can't eat gold (but it can add a sparkle of something to your daughters/sons weddings?
So maybe extrem e wealth implied a longer lasting relationship with the environment capable of sustaining life for generations rather than a magpie habit of putting stuff (usually non-perishable?) in safe places?
Just a thought that's all - humans? What you like?
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Thursday 5th March 2015 17:10 GMT Destroy All Monsters
Re: (Optional) Tsk you humans
So maybe extrem e wealth implied a longer lasting relationship with the environment capable of sustaining life for generations rather than a magpie habit of putting stuff (usually non-perishable?) in safe places?
Superior new age eco bullshit of impeccable pedigree.
People may have reached the healthy age of 40-50.
They still had to pay the taxman or hide the little they had from his prying eyes. While the leader of state and his sycophants accumulated gilded stuff on which to sit on.
It has always been thus.
a magpie habit of putting stuff (usually non-perishable?) in safe places?
Not very skilled in economics either. This is called "saving". It is what causes investments to happen. Unless (like now) financial repression goes full out like what happens currently (and happend in the roman empire a bit before the crash).
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Thursday 5th March 2015 14:37 GMT Sarah Balfour
Re: @Mr/Ms/Mrs Sarah Balfour: i don't think I've given as many upvotes…@FruitoftheLoon
Cheers, Loony! Think the only reason I'm still hanging around 'ere is coz no fucker can be arsed to ban me! This isHONESTLY the only forum from which I've yet to receive my marching orders (an it ain't for want of trying, neither!).
I've been here under my real name so long I can't be bothered using an alias.
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Thursday 5th March 2015 21:06 GMT mutt65
Theodore Morde was probably on to something. This is far from a very large area, so knowing even the remotest section to look in, it's found. This should have remained somewhat ethereal in description to trick robbers/thieves/raiders, but it seems not. Hope it remains a mystery and my children will grow up reading about it's "existence" rather than it's pillaging.
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Saturday 2nd May 2015 16:54 GMT thx1138v2
Geez, Louise!
What will they think of next? Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and now Dark Archeology. Trust us, we know it's there but you can't see it or touch it or take pictures of it. It's OURS. ALL OURS.
I can see one pissed off Monkey God doing bad things - see Richard Prior and the squirrel monkeys
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xlxqc_richard-pryor-pet-monkey_news
Biting the hand that feeds IT
