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Related: About this forumLegendary Lost City of Ciudad Blanca May Have Been Found With Airborne LiDAR
Legendary Lost City of Ciudad Blanca May Have Been Found With Airborne LiDAR
ScienceDaily (June 6, 2012) A field team from the University of Houston and the National Science Foundation (NSF) National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) has mapped a remote region of Honduras that may contain the legendary lost city of Ciudad Blanca.
The results, recently announced by Honduras President Porfirio Lobo, mark the successful completion of the first light detection and ranging (LiDAR) survey of that country's Mosquitia region, one of the world's least-explored virgin rainforests.
An initial analysis of the LiDAR survey has identified ruins that could be those of Ciudad Blanca or other long-hidden sites. The information provides archaeologists with the precise locations of features within fractions of meters for further study.
UH serves as the operational center for NCALM, a collaborative program between UH and the University of California at Berkeley. NCALM focuses on the collection of research quality, airborne LiDAR data for NSF principal investigators, the advancement of airborne LiDAR technology and applications and the education of students to fill positions in academic, government and commercial organizations requiring knowledge of airborne LiDAR.
More:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/06/120606092719.htm
duhneece
(4,129 posts)and so many more if we weren't using so many of our resources to make war.
Sorry for the gripe with no solution offered. Just bitching.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)The pervasive legend of the Ciudad Blanca or White City has captured the public's imagination in Honduras and around the world.
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.
http://mosquitia.tripod.com/id1.html
Judi Lynn
(160,707 posts)The world could use an amazing revelation concerning the reality there WERE civilizations in this hemisphere of considerable advancement, far beyond anything we ever were led to believe possible.
The "me-centered" view of the world absolutely needs a good long look at a much larger, more complex, finer reality, and there has no time like the present in such need of an awakening.
Confusious
(8,317 posts)The aztecs?
The conquistadors?
us?