An Ancient 'Lost City' is Uncovered in Mexico.  
by John Noble Wilford
NY Times, Friday Feb. 4, '94

In a lush river delta on Mexico's Gulf Coast, archeologists have found temple
mounds, ball courts and other traces of a sprawling pre-Columbian seaport city
that flurished more than 1,500 years ago and may have been a vital center of 
ancient culture and coastal commerce.  
A preliminary survey of the site, about 60 miles northwest of the modern city 
of Veracruz, has revealed the ruins of more than 100 earth-and-stone pyramids 
and other structures, some reaching heights of 130 feet, that had long remained 
largely hidden under dense vegetation. The core city and its suburbs extended 
over 40 square miles and were occupied by thousands of people, possibly more 
than 20,000Ñ large for that time and region.  No one is prepared to say who 
these people were. The city, which existed between A.D. 100 and 600, rose after
the disappearance of the Olmec civilization, once strong along the Gulf Coast, 
and centuries before the Aztecs of central Mexico. It was contemporary with the 
Classic period of the Maya, but they lived several hundred miles to the southeast. 
It probably had strong cultural and trade ties with Teotihuacan, the powerful 
urban center near present-day Mexico City.  In any event, the ancient city, 
called El Pital for a nearby village, is thought by its discoverer to be one
of the most important archeological discoveries in the Veracruz region in
more than 200 years.

City Is Called 'Pivotal'

The discovery was announced yesterday in Mexico City and Washington and was 
described in the current issue of National Geographic Research and Exploration, 
a quarterly journal of the National Geographic Society. The society and the 
Selz Foundation of New York City helped finance the research by S. Jeffrey 
K. Wilkerson, an independent archeologist who made the discovery.  In the journal
article, Mr. Wilkerson said that El Pital 'may well alter our concept of 
Mesoamerican culture history,' calling the city 'pivotal in both time and
space to the emergence of Classic civilization,' the period of urban growth 
and cultural splendor that ran from A.D. 250 to 900 for many cultures in Mexico 
and Central America.  Mr. Wilkerson is an American who has lived in Veracruz 
for more than 20 years and conducts archeological research through his own 
Institute for Cultural Ecology of the Tropics. He is also associated with the 
Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. His explorations
at El Pital were authorized by the National Institute of Anthropology and
History in Mexico City.

Exciting for Archeologists

'It's a very interesting site,' said George Stuart, director of archeological
projects at the geographic society.  'It's important and needs to be 
investigated.'  Like other archeologists, however, Mr. Stuart cautioned that
no systematic excavations have been conducted and until they are, nothing
definitive can be said about the city's role in pre-Columbian culture.  But
the prospect of finding elaborate ruins, possibly of a culture unknown until 
now, is exciting for archeologists specializing in pre-Columbian exploration. 
The coastal regions north of Veracruz have been largely. neglected because 
reconnaissance and excavations are difficult in the area's dense jungle and 
because research has long seemed to be more rewarding in the central highlands 
around Mexico City and in the Maya country to the south.  The El Pital site 
lies nine miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, upstream on the Nautla River 
at the head of navigation. Mr. Wilkerson noted that in El Pital, unlike most 
Veracruz urban centers of that period, which were in defensible valleys and 
ridges, security 'is likely to have rested on its direct governance of a 
broad region, far greater centralization than its immediate neighbors and 
alliances of lineage or commerce that place it at the hub of a regionally 
valuable network.'  One of the best known ancient cities in Veracruz was 
Matacapan, which sprang up in the south around A.D. 400. Archeologists have 
surmised that this city thrived by long-distance trade and was dominated by 
possibly colonial ties to Teotihuacan.

Complicated Role Indicated

In his survey of El Pital, Mr. Wilkerson said he found many Teotihuacan style 
ceramics. But local styles, particularly in figurines and vessels, were also 
strong, he said, indicating that El Pital 'is likely to have had a far more 
complicated role than that of a trade way station or Teotihuacan outpost.'
Mr. Wilkerson noted that some murals in Teotihuacan depict a riverside scene 
of raised agricultural fields, a farming practice at El Pital, and dense 
tropical flora. Since nothing like that could be found in the semi-arid plain 
of Teotihuacan, he said, this could be an image of El Pital 'as a sort of Eden,' 
reflecting its apparent role as a major center for food production.  El Pital 
is significant, Mr. Wilkerson said, 'because it appears to be the principal 
end point of an ancient cultural corridor that linked the north-central Gulf 
Coast with the cities of central Mexico.'  One research goal will be to 
determine the city's importance as a seaport and the extent of its coastal 
reach in trade. Some scholars have even suggested that corn and some cultural 
practices traveled from central Mexico to the Mississippi River valley about 
this time, either by overland or sea trade.  Dr. Norman Hammond, a Boston 
University archeologist who specializes in Mesoamerican studies, said it was 
impossible to conclude from present knowledge whether Mexico was the direct 
source of these innovations among the Indians of the Mississippi Valley.
The newly discovered site resembles in at least one respect another ancient 
city in the region, El Tajin, found some 40 miles away in 1785. A prominent 
feature in both were courts used in a ritual ball game that often involved 
sacrificial decapitation of some players.  Fragments of stone depicting 
aspects of the games, including figurines representing perhaps sacrificed 
ballplayers, were found at the site.  For centuries the El Pital site was 
obscured by rain forest.  The land was opened to agriculture in the l930's 
and is now heavily planted in bananas and oranges. People who lived there 
and worked the fruit plantations took the mounds for granted, assuming they 
were natural hills.  'This reminds us,' Mr. Wilkers said, 'that the time 
has come in the largely deforested tropics to carefully search for the 'lost 
cities' we have overlooked.'


Figure legend for map:
Ruins at El Pital appear to be those of a major ancient port.

Figure legend for site picture:
A 'lost city,' 1,500 years old, has been discovered at El Pital in Mexico.  
Farmers there believed the temple mounds were natural hills.