Archaeological Team Begins With Excavation of Lost Civilization in Honduras
It might be time to uncover a lost city in Honduras. Archaeologists are on their way to recover artifacts of an ancient civilization in La Mosquitia region in the eastern part of the country, hoping to find out more about the recently discovered city deep in the jungle.
According to a report from National Geographic, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez went to the site of the "lost city" to be a part of the excavation of the first artefact last Tuesday.
Colorado State University put together an archaeological team for the expedition supported by the Honduran government and a grant from the National Geographic Society. Led by the university's Christopher Fisher, the group will be spending a month in Honduras for the project.
Virgilio Paredes, Director of the Honduran Institute for Anthropology and History, was with President Hernandez during his visit and reiterated the goals of the team saying, "We're hoping to find out what culture was here."
He added that after the month of scouring the archaeological site, the team is planning to develop a "strategic plan" to expand the study and the search for ancient civilizations in the area. After all, the specific area that's currently being explored is only one of three in the region that was discovered in 2012.
The "White City", also known as the "Lost City of the Monkey God", has long been the subject of legends, as a remote place where Indians took refuge from the Spanish conquistadores. A previous report from National Geographic revealed that an expedition last March unveiled an old culture in the supposed site of the secret city.
The region of La Mosquitia is still relatively unexplored by scientists, so the expedition last year yielded great results as the archaeologists were able to survey and map "extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds, and an earthen pyramid belonging to a culture that thrived a thousand years ago, and then vanished."
About 52 artifacts were seen on the earth, plus many more potentially underground including burials. There were stone seats and vessels carved with a variety of animals, but the most interesting find was the head of a "were-jaguar", which possibly showed a shaman in a "transformed, spirit state".
Fisher revealed the extraordinary nature of the newly discovered site saying, "The undisturbed context is unique. This is a powerful ritual display, to take wealth objects like this out of circulation."
Oscar Neil Cruz, head archaeologist at the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History (IHAH), put the date of the artifacts at A.D. 1000 to 1400.
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