The legend of the fabulous lost city of Honduras was first recorded by Hernan Cortes who, in 1526,
less than five years after vanquishing the Aztecs, came to the colonial town of Trujillo,
on the north coast of Honduras, to look for the fabled town
of Hueitapalan, literally, Old Land of Red Earth. Cortes search for this Central American El Dorado marks the beginning of
the Ciudad Blanca legend, as well as the first of many failed attempts to find this lost city.
Nearly twenty years later, in the year
1544, Bishop Cristobol de Pedraza, the Bishop of Honduras, wrote a letter to the King of Spain describing an arduous trip
to the edge of the Mosquito Coast jungles. In fantastic language, he tells of looking east from a mountaintop
into unexplored territory, where he saw a large city in one of the river valleys that cut through the Mosquito
Coast. His guides, he wrote, assured him that the nobles there ate from plates of gold.
Since then, the legend has continued
to grow. The White City
has often been linked to Central American mythology; for example, it has sometimes been credited as the birthplace of the
Aztec god Quetzalcoatl. Moreover, jungle travelers including hunters and pilots
have occasionally reported sightings of a large city lost in the jungle. Some of these reports mention golden idols; others
comment on the elaborately-carved white stones that give the city its name.
Several expeditions
were launched to find the city, and some thought they did. In 1939, for example, explorer Theodore Morde who may have had
ties to the CIA supposedly found the lost city, and later wrote the bizarre travelogue Lost
City of the Monkey God just before being run over by an automobile in London,
England. Later adventurers have suspected sinister motives in his untimely
death, and have argued that the U.S. Government or other forces were trying to silence him in order to retain this incredible
find for themselves. Recently, a some non-archaeological experts have claimed to have found the White City, joining a long
line of people making the same claim.
Professional archaeologists in the area
remain skeptical of these claims for a number of reasons; nevertheless, since the 1940s, announcements of expeditions to find
the lost city have peppered Honduran and U.S. papers. Every
time it seems the White City has been
found, events conspire to conceal its location before its existence is verified. Thus, periodic reports of its discovery have
not slowed the search.
Local Indian groups have different versions
of the lost city legend. Most of these prohibit entry into the lost city, and
some focus on the alienation of indigenous gods who have sought refuge in the sacred city, which is not so much lost as hidden.
Recently,
relatively large-scale archaeological projects have been undertaken in the region for the first time. The discovery of some
large, impressive archaeological sites in the jungles
of the Mosquito Coast fueled an initiative by the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History to
explore this region. Word spread quickly to the treasure hunting community, fueled
in part by the contemporaneous development of the internet. With the subject discussed on websites and list servers, the furor
surrounding the White
City reached unprecedented proportions in the last few years. Most recently, a documentary
with Dr. Begley and the actor Ewan McGregor was produced and widely aired, highlighting the archaeology and rugged conditions
of the region.
