‘Real life Indiana Jones’ was attacked by monkeys after discovering ancient jungle city

Dr Ed Barnhart, often dubbed the ‘real life Indiana Jones’, discovered a hidden Mayan city in the remote rainforests of Belize, but had to dodge attacks from overprotective monkeys while doing so

An archaeologist who discovered a hidden Mayan city in the remote rainforests of Belize has revealed that he was attacked by a furious gang of monkeys that seemed to be guarding the ancient ruins deep in the jungle.

Dr Ed Barnhart, who has been dubbed the ‘real life Indiana Jones’, uncovered the lost Maya settlement while exploring remote rainforest in the central American country. He had been tracking a route of abandoned colonial logging tracks through a territory that had barely been touched by modern archaeologists when he made the breakthrough.

But instead of treasure traps or ancient curses, Barnhart said his first encounter at the extraordinary site involved an angry troop of monkeys hurling objects from the trees above.

He said: “There were monkeys all over its Central Plaza. That’s where they lived and when we showed up and had lunch there, they were p*****.

“They were all in the trees above us trying to throw things at us and get us out of there.”

The discovery in 1995 was so dominated by the animals that Barnhart decided to name the site Ma’ax Na, a phrase from the Maya Yucatec language which translates to “Monkey House”.

He said: “From the initial discovery that it was indeed a city we were sitting in, which is sometimes not so easy when you’re in the middle of a jungle, I decided it was their home and we had invaded it. So I called it Monkey House.”

The archaeologist made the incredible find at just 25-years-old while surveying huge stretches of unexplored rainforest. He said: “The truth is there’s a ton of the Maya area that hasn’t been explored on foot.

“Back then there were just wide swathes of area that nobody had really searched for archaeology.” The dramatic jungle discovery has earned Barnhart comparisons with Harrison Ford’s whip-cracking explorer from the Indiana Jones film franchise.

But he said that the real history of the Americas is far more fascinating than even Hollywood fiction. And he said it is because of things like Hollywood that modern audiences still misunderstand so much about the ancient Maya and Olmec civilisations from the area.

One of the biggest myths, he claims, is the idea the Maya “vanished”. He said: “There are at least 16 million Maya still left on the planet. When people think they’re gone, it kind of dehumanises them. They are people we can interact with and they still hold amazing amounts of their traditions and cosmological thought.”

Barnhart also rejected sensational myths surrounding ancient Mesoamerican culture, especially the often held belief that losing teams in ritual ball games were routinely sacrificed. He said: “I think that’s a misunderstanding of the evidence and a myth that’s been propagated because it sounds exciting.

“If the consequences of losing a sporting event were your death, you would really be hard put to find players.” Instead, he says these cultures were sophisticated innovators whose practical achievements are often overlooked.

The Olmecs, regarded as Mesoamerica’s first great civilisation, pioneered chocolate culture, developed complex trade systems and may even have helped inspire later mathematical concepts including zero. He said: “They were super creative people.”

And while movies often look to portray the indigenous South and Central American peoples as coming from mysterious lost worlds, he believes the reality is both simpler and more human. He said: “They’re not just anthropological specimens. They have descendants and what we say about them reflects upon living people today.”

Dr Ed Barnhart is is a leading Latin American archaeologist and director of the Maya Exploration Center. Over a 20-year career he has mapped more than 4,000 ancient buildings and become a recognised expert on Maya astronomy, mathematics and calendar systems.

He has also appeared on History Channel and Discovery Channel documentaries discussing ancient American civilisations.

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