40 pages • 1 hour read
The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story
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Chapters 12-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 12 Summary: “No Coincidences”
The findings are released to the international press and presented in televised press conferences in Honduras. While the official press release does not say that Ciudad Blanca was found, this is the narrative in the popular press. Meanwhile, some prominent American archaeologists criticize the findings as over-sensational hype. Meanwhile, the team searches for an archaeologist to help interpret and legitimize the results.
Chris Fisher is a Mesoamerican archaeologist with expertise in the use of lidar in archaeology. After studying the lidar data, he determines that both sites are “cities,” as defined archaeologically. They are not Maya but are comparable in size and complexity to some Maya cities. They appear to be part of the same culture as other known sites in Mosquitia, and this culture was much larger and more powerful than previously known.
Elkins and his filmmaker friend Bill Benenson then spend two years planning an expedition into T1 to ground-truth—in other words, to confirm the existence of the site.
Chapter 13 Summary: “Fer-de-Lance”
The ground expedition to T1 begins in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in 2015 on Valentine’s Day. The team plans the logistics of entering the valley by helicopter and argues over their low supply of snake antivenin. They drive to the town of Catacamas, from where they will fly out to T1, which is guarded by an elite Honduran military contingent. The team is mostly new, including a film crew, producers, archaeologists, and anthropologists. A group of three former British soldiers, led by Woody, also join the team. Woody provides the frightening lecture from Chapter 1.
Chapter 14 Summary: “Don’t Pick the Flowers”
Preston goes on an aerial flight to scout out the landing zones. The next day they make the first landings in the valley to set up camp. The Honduran copilot tells Preston his grandmother’s stories about the conquistadors who died in the Ciudad Blanca because they picked the flowers.
The helicopter lands, and Preston and the others head into the jungle to make camp, joining the former British soldiers and Chris Fisher. The forest is pleasant, beautiful, and free of insects during the day. The animals move by without concern, as they have never seen humans before. The ex-soldiers tell stories of their adventures in the jungle as night falls. Mosquitoes and sand flies assail the team. Preston nearly gets lost in the jungle and is threatened by a huge fer-de-lance, a lethal venomous snake, which Woody expertly kills.
Chapter 15 Summary: “Human Hands”
Preston describes the disturbing insects that cover the forest floor during the night, and the arrival of the rest of the team the next morning. The team makes their first brief foray to the ruined city, which is nearly invisible to the untrained eye under the dense groundcover. Even GPS only works with great difficulty due to the dense canopy. They find a row of stone altars and walk across plazas and pyramids. A pounding rain hits the camp that evening.
Chapters 12-15 Analysis
Chapter 12 opens with the fallout of the lidar results, which lead to substantial controversy. Prominent archaeologist Rosemary Joyce, for example, argues that the results mean very little until ground-truthed. This leads the team to archaeologist Chris Fisher, who believes the results are quite extraordinary but that ground-truthing is indeed necessary. Fisher’s interpretations also put the results in their more realistic archaeological context. While Preston has heretofore alluded to the mysterious White City, he now drops this veil and reveals the reality: They have found multiple sites of a real, advanced culture with much more complex meanings, interpretations, and possibilities than simply a lost city.
When they finally begin to explore the site of T1 on the ground, Preston introduces the site by matter-of-factly presenting the reality: the expectations of a magnificent ruined city were wrong. Though real, the city is completely covered by soil and vegetation. Only the trained eye of Fisher, the archaeologist, can see much of it, and only with the help of the GPS and lidar maps. While Preston builds so much anticipation and expectation in the first half of the book, he now presents the stark reality of archaeology. Nothing is as magnificent as it is presented in popular media and legends. The second half of the book continues to dispel the White City legend and replace it with archaeological facts.
Preston also establishes the jungle of the T1 valley as an entity in Chapter 14. During the day Preston paints the jungle as an Eden, noting its pleasantness and raw beauty. This demonstrates the importance of this pristine wilderness, and moving forward, Preston will emphasize the threats against this natural setting. At night, however, Preston observes its danger and hostility, exemplified through venomous snakes, biting insects, and unseen animals, as well as his experience of nearly getting lost. Preston continually stresses elements of danger, also including warring drug cartels and dangerous open-air rappels from the helicopter to the landing zone. These dangers continue to foment a suspenseful tone as the book progresses.
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