Discovered - lost city of legendary Monkey God

The Honduras rain forest. Photo / Thinkstock

The jungle-choked remains of a "lost city", abandoned by a mysterious civilisation several centuries ago and long thought to have housed gold and "monkey children", have been uncovered in the depths of Honduras rainforests.

A team of US and Honduran archaeologists has emerged from one of the most remote locations on Earth with news of their discovery.

The expedition party was seeking the "White City", also known as the "City of the Monkey God", an ambition of Western explorers since the days of the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century. The city, believed to be one of many lost in the Mosquitia jungle, was home to an unknown people that thrived 1000 years ago but then vanished without trace. Unlike the Maya, so little is known of this pre-Columbian culture that it does not even have a name.

The discovery was disclosed by the National Geographic, which sent a writer and photographer with the expedition to the riverside site in a crater-shaped valley, encircled by mountains. The archaeologists, led by Christopher Fisher, surveyed and mapped extensive plazas, earthworks, mounds, and an earthen pyramid, the magazine reported. They also discovered a "remarkable cache of stone sculptures" that had lain untouched for centuries - they documented their findings, but left them unexcavated.

The Mosquitia is a vast and barely inhabited region of swamps, rivers, and mountains. The team was guided by former SAS soldiers who are experts in bushcraft survival.

Accompanied by Honduran troops, they set up base in a small town and were ferried by military helicopter into a landing zone cut from the jungle.

The expedition was following up on the work of an aerial survey in 2012 which used radar technology to map the jungle floor through the thick canopy and identified what seemed to be a large architectural site buried underground. The team found the tops of 52 artefacts jutting out of the ground, with many more lying beneath the earth, including possible burial sites. The items include stone ceremonial seats and finely carved vessels decorated with snakes and vultures.

Theodore Morde, an American adventurer, may have found the site during a 1940 expedition, but died without revealing the location. He described a city where a giant monkey deity was once worshipped and tribes described myths of half-human, half-simian children.