A view of the Rio Platano biosphere reserve in Honduras, where explorers over the past century have claimed several times to have spotted the White City (AFP Photo/Orlando Sierra) 
 
 Tegucigalpa (AFP) - Honduras said Thursday it was starting a major archeological dig for a mysterious, ancient "White City" supposedly hidden in jungle in its northeast that explorers and legends have spoken of for centuries. 
 
 "Today a group of archeologists and scientists is traveling to the White City to start excavations in coming days," President Juan Orlando Hernandez said in a speech to private universities. 
 
 The hope is that they will uncover incontrovertible proof of the existence of the fabled site, which has also been called "the City of the Monkey God" and, in Spanish, "la Ciudad Blanca." 
 
 According to 16th-century Spanish conquistadors and to legend, the settlement, dating back thousands of years, is meant to be filled with fabulous riches. 
 
 Explorers over the past century have claimed several times to have spotted the White City in the thick jungle inside the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve on Honduras' Caribbean coast. Archeologists in recent decades found what looked like ancient mounds. 
 
 Then in 2012 an American documentary team using mapping technology in a small plane discovered what appeared to be the overgrown remains of an ancient civilization. National Geographic magazine reported last October that some carved stone artefacts had been found at the site. 
 
 The new expedition by Honduras intends to confirm the find by digging down to discover what lies under the soil. ||||| March 6, 2015 
 
 To Whom It May Concern: 
 
 We write to express serious concerns over the recent articles proclaiming the discovery of a lost city or lost civilization in Honduras. We find that these articles: 1) make exaggerated claims of ‘discovery,’ 2) ignore extensive previous research in the region, 3) fail to acknowledge local residents’ familiarity with the region, 4) sensationalize the practice of archaeology, and 5) employ an offensive and dated discourse that is at odds with anthropology’s substantial efforts at inclusion and multivocality. In addition to appearing uninformed and focused on self-aggrandizement, these articles implicitly violate a basic tenet of science, attributed to archaeologist David Hurst Thomas: ‘It’s not what you find; it’s what you find out.” 
 
 1) Exaggerated Claims of ‘Discovery’ 
 
 As in previous articles and press releases, members of the expedition incorrectly claim that this team of filmmakers, former soldiers, and archaeologists have ‘discovered’ a ‘lost civilization’ in the Mosquitia region of eastern Honduras. In reality, as members of the expedition well knew, this region has been the object of archaeological research for most of the last century and especially in the last two decades. Intensive previous research has been conducted by archaeologists, geographers, and other scientists. Far from being unknown, the area has been the focus of many scholarly and popular works, including two Master’s theses, one doctoral dissertation, two popular books, two documentary films, numerous articles and presentations, and a series of booklets recently published by a Honduran newspaper. Furthermore, mentions of a “vanished civilization” are especially offensive given the likelihood that the people responsible for the ancient remains were the ancestors of living indigenous people who have not “vanished” despite genocide, disease, and ongoing injustices. 
 
 2) Failure to Acknowledge Previous Research 
 
 Archaeologists with expertise in this region contacted team members after earlier press releases and articles in 2012 and 2013, so ignorance of prior research cannot be claimed. Statements in these article suggest a lack of familiarity with previous scholarship. However, easily accessed online resources, such as the Mosquitia website (http://mosquitia.com) and a detailed Wikipedia article on La Ciudad Blanca, makes this indefensible. 
 
 3) Failure to Acknowledge Local Knowledge 
 
 These articles blatantly disregard significant local knowledge of the archaeological resources in this region. Local indigenous groups and long-time residents of the area have made essential contributions to the location, documentation, and interpretation of archaeological sites. These have been acknowledged in previous published works by archaeologists such as Begley, Hasemann, Lara Pinto, Dixon, and Gomez Zuniga, making them especially conspicuous by their absence in this reporting. 
 
 4) Sensationalizing the Archaeology of the Region 
 
 By focusing on the White City legend, citing the “Lost City of the Monkey God” (a name invented in 1940 for a tabloid news story), and by presenting the area as ‘one of the last scientifically unexplored places on earth,’ these articles exploit hyperbolic, sensational, and unscientific rhetoric. Explanation of research questions and other essential aspects of a scientific approach are largely ignored. 
 
 5) Problematic Discourse and the Trope of Discovery 
 
 These articles set up the expedition members as ‘discoverers,’ a common trope in 19th and early 20th century adventure travel writing in which external superiority is emphasized at the expense of local knowledge. The positioning of the expedition members as latter-day explorers who ‘discover’ sites in the jungle, in areas where ‘the animals appear never to have seen humans before’ shows ignorance and disrespect for indigenous Pech, Tawahka, and Miskito peoples and other Hondurans who have lived there all their lives. Archaeologists know that even the most remote areas are routinely visited by hunters and fishers. Claiming to be the first person to discover a large archaeological site, much less a “lost city” or “lost civilization” is not only improbable, but evokes a problematic past when local and indigenous contributions to knowledge were ignored and in which things already known to residents of the region were claimed to have been ‘discovered’ by foreign explorers. 
 
 We urge you to make an effort to correct the inaccuracies and damaging rhetoric in these articles and to give more sophisticated consideration to the publication of this and future articles that sensationalize archaeology, make false claims of discovery, show a general ignorance of the region and previous research, and exploit rhetorical elements that represent antiquated and offensive, ethnocentric attitudes. ||||| For a century, explorers and prospectors in Honduras told tales of the white ramparts of a lost city glimpsed above jungle foliage. Indigenous stories speak of a “white house” where Indians took refuge from Spanish conquistadores. 
 
 While the notion of a fabulous White City or a “Lost City of the Monkey God” buried in the jungle remains the stuff of legend, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez paid a visit Tuesday to a real and recently discovered lost city—complete with earthen pyramids, plazas, and a cache of stone artifacts—to participate in the excavation of the first artifact from the cache. 
 
 Archaeologists announced the discovery of the ancient community in the remote Mosquitia region in eastern Honduras last March. The stone objects, including an effigy of a “were-jaguar,” were left untouched under military protection until a second expedition could be mounted to return to conduct a carefully managed excavation. The archaeological team, led by Christopher Fisher of Colorado State University and supported by the Honduran government and a grant from the National Geographic Society, will spend a month recovering the artifacts. 
 
 “We’re hoping to find out what culture was here,” says Virgilio Paredes, Director of the Honduran Institute for Anthropology and History, who is accompanying President Hernandez to the site. ||||| Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The location of the White City lies in the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve, a vast region of jungle, mountains, swamps and rivers 
 
 The President of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernandez, says scientists plan to explore a jungle site where they believe a mysterious ancient city is hidden. 
 
 Spanish colonisers searched for it believing "the City of the Monkey God" or "the White City" was filled with fabulous riches. 
 
 Over the centuries there have been reports of more sightings. 
 
 Then in the last three years ruins and carved stones were found. 
 
 In 2012 an American documentary team using mapping technology flew over the site inside the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve on Honduras's Caribbean coast and discovered what appeared to be the overgrown remains of an ancient civilisation. 
 
 National Geographic magazine reported last October that some carved stone artefacts had been found at the site deep in the reserve - a vast region of forests, swamps and rivers. 
 
 Image copyright Reuters Image caption President Juan Orlando Hernandez says the White City is an opportunity for the country to built its tourism industry 
 
 President Hernandez said the expedition would begin to dig in the next few days to try to discover what lay under the soil at the site. 
 
 He said that the coverage of the site in international magazines and in the documentary had given Honduras useful international publicity at a time when the country was seeking to bring in more tourists. 
 
 "The rest of the world is talking about us and the White City in tourism terms and we want to put that in the context of the new infrastructure we are building - highways, airports, ports. We need to be ready to take advantage of this great opportunity." 
 
 Archaeologists from Honduras and the United States had made a first examination of the site of the White City and had found artefacts, earth works, mounds and an earth pyramid made by an ancient civilization.
– For centuries locals, travelers, and Spanish conquistadors alike have spoken of the legend of the "Lost City of the Monkey God," or "White City," in a remote section of the Mosquitia jungle of Honduras. Now President Juan Orlando Hernandez is announcing a joint partnership with Colorado State University archaeologists and the National Geographic Society to excavate a large swath of jungle where stones and ruins have been recently unearthed in search of the root of the legend, reports the BBC. "The rest of the world is talking about us and the White City in tourism terms," says Hernandez, adding that "we need to be ready to take advantage of this great opportunity." The recent discoveries began in 2012, when an American documentary crew flew over the Rio Platano Biosphere Reserve on the Caribbean coast with a plane-mounted lidar scanner and caught glimpses of not just one but three lost cities and what scientists surmise could be remnants of an entire civilization. Then last March archaeologists discovered several stone objects, including an effigy of a "were-jaguar," National Geographic reports. Over the next month, "we're hoping to find out what culture was here," says the director of the Honduran Institute for Anthropology and History. They'll expand the search from there, but they expect that the civilization dates back thousands of years, reports AFP. (After the March news was announced, several scholars penned an open letter calling the claim exaggerated.)