Lost City of Z

The Lost City of Z is the name given by Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett, a British surveyor, to a city that he thought existed in the jungle of the Mato Grosso region of Brazil. Another mysterious city is referenced in a document known as Manuscript 512, housed at the National Library of Rio de Janeiro, believed to be by Portuguese bandeirante João da Silva Guimarães who wrote that he'd visited the city in 1753. The city is described in great detail without providing a specific location. Fawcett allegedly heard about this city in the early 1900s and went to Rio de Janeiro to learn more, and came across the earlier report. He was about to go in search of the city when World War I intervened. In 1925, Fawcett, his son Jack, and Raleigh Rimell disappeared in the Mato Grosso while searching for Z with the final destination the 1753 city in the province of Bahia.

Although the search for the lost city of Z was made in the Mato Grosso, the secondary goal was the 1753 city in Bahia province Manuscript 512 was written after explorations made in the sertão of the province of Bahia, see Fawcett's own book "Exploration Fawcett".

David Grann's New Yorker article "The Lost City of Z" (2005) was expanded into a book The Lost City of Z (2009). A film based on the book was made in 2015.^[1]

Possible influences on Fawcett

There is a possibility that legends regarding the archaeological complex at Kuhikugu influenced the British explorer Colonel Percy Fawcett to attempt his last expedition in 1925 for the City of Z.^[2]

See also

• Dead Horse Camp
• The Lost City of Z (book)
• Kuhikugu

Sources

• Fawcett, Percy and Brian Fawcett. - Lost Trails, Lost Cities Funk & Wagnalls (1953)
• Furneaux, Rupert. The World's Strangest Mysteries. Ace Books. New York. 1961.
• The Guardian: Veil lifts on jungle mystery of the colonel who vanished. 21 March 2004, URL accessed 19 May 2007.
• Smith, Warren. Lost Cities of the Ancients-Unearthed!. Zebra Books. New York. 1976.
• Time: Fawcett of the Mato Grosso. 25 May 1953, URL accessed 18 May 2007.

Footnotes

1. "James Gray's 'The Lost City Of Z' Starts Shooting, Marvel's Spider-Man Tom Holland Joins The Cast". Retrieved August 12, 2015.
2. Grann, David. The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. New York: Doubleday Publishing, 2009. ISBN 978-0-385-51353-1

Further reading

• Grann, David (2009). The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon. Doubleday. ISBN 978-0-385-51353-1.
• Langer, Johnni (2002). "A Cidade Perdida da Bahia: mito e arqueologia no Brasil Império". Revista Brasileira de História (in Portuguese) 22 (43): 126–152. doi:10.1590/S0102-01882002000100008. ISSN 1806-9347. Retrieved October 19, 2013.

External links

• Movie: The Secret of El Dorado
• Manuscript 512 (English translations by Isabel Burton and Harold T. Wilkins).
• Manuscript 512, English translation.
• Secrets of the Dead - Lost in the Amazon. PBS Video special on Fawcett's quest for the City of Z.
• "The Lost City of Z", The New Yorker article by David Grann 2005
• "Under the Jungle", David Grann 2010