The Lost City of the Monkey God
| Company type | Book |
|---|---|
| Industry | Publishing |
| Founded | 2017 |
| Founder | Douglas Preston |
| Products | Nonfiction book |
The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story is a nonfiction work published in 2017 by Douglas Preston, which narrates a project spearheaded by documentary filmmakers Steve Elkins and Bill Benenson. This initiative employed LiDAR technology to uncover archaeological sites within the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve located in eastern Honduras. The venture was a joint Honduran-American collaboration that brought together experts from archaeology, anthropology, engineering, geology, biology, and ethnobotany.
Elkins' expedition was motivated by legends surrounding La Ciudad Blanca, also known as the White City, with Preston drawing on accounts from Spanish conquistadors and earlier explorers. The book’s title alludes to four expeditions during the 1930s conducted by the Museum of the American Indian (Heye Foundation), where local Honduran sources described a lost city distinguished by a pyramid crowned with a massive stone statue of a monkey god. Preston disputes explorer Theodore Morde’s assertions of having discovered this city.
A lidar survey funded privately exposed intricate archaeological features beneath the dense rainforest canopy. Preston participated in a combined Honduran-American mission to validate these results, confirming the existence of expansive abandoned pre-Columbian settlements comprising plazas, terracing, canals, roads, earthen constructions including a pyramid, and artifacts such as ornately decorated cylindrical stone vessels and metates. The main site has been officially designated as the City of the Jaguar.
The narrative also addresses medical difficulties encountered by members of the expedition who contracted severe leishmaniasis, a parasitic illness spread by sandflies.
Preston recounts decades of exploration and archaeological investigations in this area dating back to the 1920s and details early explorers’ pursuits of the legendary lost city. Prior to releasing the book, he detailed these discoveries in The New Yorker and National Geographic. The announcement of the find generated criticism from some archaeologists who were not part of the project.
From a commercial standpoint, the book reached number one on The New York Times bestseller list and received recognition as a notable book of the year by The New York Times as well as being named among the best books of the year by National Geographic, the Boston Globe, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.