40 pages • 1 hour read
Douglas PrestonThe Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 20-22Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 20 Summary: “The Cave of the Glowing Skulls”
Preston poses the question of who built the ancient city of T1 and suggests that the remains of dozens of people from 2,000 to 3,000 years ago found in the nearby Talgua Caves might be related. These caves are full of skulls and bones “covered with glittering crystals of calcite” (195), as well as ceramic and marble vessels. Archaeologist James Brady found that these people were not Maya, as first assumed.
Preston describes the history of the ancient Maya city of Copán and its dynastic founder, K’inich Yax K’uk’ Mo’, or “Quetzal Macaw.” The city, which lasted from roughly AD 400-800, finally collapsed due to a combination of elite mismanagement, top-heavy social inequality, and drought. Sites in Mosquitia developed during the reign of Copán, but Mosquitia civilization grew substantially after Copán’s collapse. It is possible that Mosquitia-related people from Copán left at the time of its collapse and moved to Mosquitia, bringing some Maya influence with them.
Yet the Maya are well-studied, whereas the Mosquitia civilization has been largely neglected by archaeologists. One reason is because the popular Maya culture is so close by, drawing research away from Mosquitia. Another reason is that the Mosquitia built with wood, adobe, and earth, which do not leave such impressive ruins as the cut stone buildings of the Maya. Yet in their time, the temples of Mosquitia were colorful and spectacular, and the cities were vast, with temples and plazas broken up by urban gardens and massive reservoirs. The civilization collapsed all at once around AD 1500.
Chapter 21 Summary: “The Symbol of Death”
Caches of stone sculptures are a distinct characteristic of the Mosquitia civilization, but the cache at T1 is the only one ever found completely intact. Fisher and his team excavate the cache at T1 in 2016, a year after the first expedition. They recover over 200 stone and ceramic artifacts dating to AD 1000-1500. Preston reflects on the culture’s success in long-distance trade: “There were at least five kinds of stone from different areas, suggesting a network of trade in fine stone with other communities” (212).
Most of the artifacts in the cache were metates, or grinding stones that look like small tables and may have functioned as seats or thrones. Preston notes the differing interpretations of the function and meaning of these artifacts. Fisher finds that the cache was deposited all at once, arranged around a central vulture sculpture, and that most of the artifacts were intentionally broken. This suggests that the cache was a ritual termination of the site when it was abandoned, a practice common across the Americas. This poses the question of why the cities across Mosquitia were suddenly abandoned around AD 1500.
Chapter 22 Summary: “They Came to Wither the Flowers”
Preston investigates the collapse of the Mosquitia civilization through the myth of the White City, which was “struck down by a series of catastrophes, after which the people decided the gods were angry and left” (219). From then on, the city was cursed and forbidden.
Preston explores the possible reality behind the myth, beginning with Columbus’s second voyage to the New World in 1493, when European diseases began to wipe out the Caribbean’s indigenous population. Columbus’s fourth voyage in 1502 brought epidemics to the mainland, beginning with Honduras. Smallpox, brought in 1518, annihilated even greater numbers and allowed for the conquest of the Aztec capital in modern-day Mexico City as well as the Maya area in Guatemala.
While quantitative evidence is lacking, epidemics likely wiped out the vast majority of Mosquitia’s population between 1520 and 1550, even though the Spanish never colonized the region. The T1 site may have been abandoned and the cache left behind. The decimation of the Mosquitia population through disease may have inspired the legend that the White City was cursed.
Chapters 20-22 Analysis
In these chapters Preston explores broader archaeological theories about the Mosquitia civilization and its abandonment. He synthesizes archaeological research of the Mosquitia civilization and of the Maya in Chapter 20, providing evocative descriptions of what these civilizations looked like in their heyday. At this point in the narrative, with the myth of the Lost City dispelled by the image of a more complex archaeological civilization, Preston provides descriptive context to clarify the significance of the T1 site and its advanced civilization. He also makes the significant point that Mosquitia civilization is vastly understudied compared to the nearby Maya, making the T1 site that much more impactful and important.
Preston also explores interpretations of the sculpture cache, concluding that it was left all at once as the last residents abandoned the city. Preston uses this revelation to ask why Mosquitia was abandoned around 1500 if the Spanish never conquered the area.
In Chapter 22 Preston develops his thesis that the legend of the cursed White City developed after pandemics decimated Mosquitia’s cities. Preston follows the historical evidence carefully, citing quantitative data of the decimation of Indian populations in the Caribbean, Mexico, and other parts of Honduras to support his theory that the population of Mosquitia would also have been decimated. With this hypothesis supported by evidence, Preston makes the logical supposition that this catastrophic event would have led to the abandonment of the Mosquitia cities, and that stories of these events would have eventually coalesced into the White City legend.
