The Lost City of the Monkey God

by Douglas Preston

I can recall the very moment when we stumbled over the cache and I first saw that jaguar head coming out of the ground. Gleaming with rain, it rose up snarling, as if struggling to escape the earth. It was an image that spoke directly to me across the centuries—forging an immediate, emotive connection to these vanished people. What had been theoretical for me became real: This spirited image had been created by people who were confident, accomplished, and formidable. Standing in the gloom among the ancient mounds, I could almost feel the presence of the invisible dead. At its zenith, the people of the city of T1, the City of the Jaguar, must have felt nearly invulnerable in their valley redoubt ringed by mountains. What power could overthrow their mighty gods and potent rituals? But the unseen invader ghosted in and visited upon them a destruction that was as impossible to resist as it was to predict. Sometimes, a society can see its end approaching from afar and still not be able to adapt, like the Maya; at other times, the curtain drops without warning and the show is over.