November 10: Lost and Found

3. Dana Lamb, Quest for the Lost City

As a detailed case-study this week, we are examining the story of Dana and Ginger Lamb, an early American survivalist couple who traveled throughout Mexico and Guatemala in the 1930s and 1940s. On its own, the Lambs' tale of jungle adventures and archaeological discoveries is not at all remarkable—it echoes many of the well-worn tropes of exploration we have considered since the beginning of this course. In the past decade, however, the Lambs' story has been revived and become a kind of "Maya Mystery"—though not of the sort they intended.

As newlyweds, Dana and Ginger Lamb spent their (3-year) honeymoon traveling from California to Panama in a homemade dugout canoe. During their voyage (chronicled in a 1938 book, Enchanted Vagabonds), they became intrigued by Mexico's Maya past. As a series of follow-up adventures (which took place over the course of 11 years, with 8 interruptions), they set out in search for a "Lost City" supposedly hinted at in their earlier travels. On their subsequent journeys, the Lambs were better prepared to document their trip for subsequent promotion, bringing along a video camera rigged with a timer to produce footage that would eventually become a full-lenth film and keeping detailed journals that would eventually become another book (both titled Quest for the Lost City).

Although the Lambs embellished their story at nearly every turn and felt no need to provide a consistent narrative across the film, their journals, their letters, and the book, they did indeed find what might be called a "lost" city ("lost" in the sense that its exact location and local or original name remain widely unknown). The Lambs' video and photographs provide the only in-situ documentation of a set of carved lintels (horizontal supports across the top of a doorway, made of wood or stone by the ancient Maya), which were later looted and remain in private collections.

Most of Quest for the Lost City (whether the film or the book) details Dana and Ginger's survival techniques—drinking water from thick vines, capturing and skinning everything from deer to jaguar, how to sew and seal a waterproof camera bag, etc. It is only at the end of the film that the "Lost City" really becomes the focus.

If you wish to watch Quest for the Lost City in its entirety, you are more than welcome to do so. The film is available here.

At a minimum, watch the introduction to Quest for the Lost City to get a more detailed overview and sense of the Lambs small celebrity status (Beginning/1:10-11:15), a quick clip where the Lambs spot the "Lost City" (judging from the cleared and easy views of temples, most likely the well-known site of Bonampak) from an airplane (17:11-18:10), and the end of the film, where the Lambs meet and stay with a group of Lacandon Maya and finally make their way to the "Lost City" (44:55-End).

4. Dana Lamb and Ginger Lamb, "The Fury of the Gods"

This chapter, from Dana and Ginger Lamb's book version of Quest for the Lost City, gives you a sense of how difficult it is to separate fact from fiction in their narratives. After watching the film, you'll notice immediately that the chapter's narration of the very same events shown on camera are often completely different in the Lambs' prose—additional people and technology are involved, timelines and modes of transport change, and even the culminating find (the "sealed chamber") appears in only one telling.

Access a PDF of Dana and Ginger Lamb's "The Fury of the Gods" here.

Think about the narrative of Quest for the Lost City in relation to earlier tales of discovery that you have read or seen (e.g., John Lloyd Stephens's account, Les Mitchel's Maya are People). What sorts of details are provided or left out? Does new technology (e.g., a plane) change the narrative or its tone? What about the fact that Maya archaeology—including big digs like the Carnegie excavations—have been carried out for decades by the time the Lambs undertake their explorations?

5. Andrew Scherer, Charles Golden, Stephen Houston, and James Doyle, "A Universe in a Maya Lintel 1: The Lamb's Journey and the 'Lost City'"

This piece comes from a blog called "Maya Decipherment," which is run by David Stuart. The blog offers a kind of quick, fairly informal publication outlet, primarily for articles about Maya hieroglyphs and iconography (notice the entries still use academic citations and credit any images used). In this article, you'll find the actual mystery in which the Lambs were involved. Two carved stone lintels seen by the Lambs at the "Lost City" they christened Laxtunich were later looted from the site and made it into the U.S. art market and private collections, where they "reappeared" in 2013 and 2015. Here, four archaeologists try to piece together the various clues left behind by the Lambs' accounts and images to track down the lintels and their place of origin.

As you can imagine from watching and reading selections from the two versions of Quest for the Lost City, it is difficult to try to retrace the Lambs' often-exaggerated steps. Dana Lamb's journals are of more use than the "polished" narratives of the film or the book, but even those tend to overestimate the distances traveled or emphasize ephemeral landmarks.

Access a PDF of Andrew Scherer, Charles Golden, Stephen Houston, and James Doyle's, "A Universe in a Maya Lintel 1: The Lamb's Journey and the 'Lost City'" here.

Think about the effort put in to Dana and Ginger's original adventure and by the archaeologists chasing them almost a century later. How do the Lambs fit into or strain the boundaries of the usual categories of explorers or archaeologists, professionals or amateurs, looters or legitimate investigators? Are there ethical implications to the Lambs' quest for the "Lost City"?