Amazon Adventure

Following the Colonel Percy Fawcett posting, Ben Hammott got in touch to say that he's just written Amazon Adventure, a novel about the explorer's journey to the Lost City of Z. Billed as an "exciting archaeological mystery thriller", the book story begins at Dead Horse Camp, Fawcett's last known position in 1925. From there, using old letters and diaries, Hammott's story "weaves together an exciting blend of fact and fiction linked to the legends surrounding the lost Fawcett expedition and the mysterious Amazonian Jungle."

As well as news about the book, the Fawcett Adventure website is a treasure trove of information about the man, including a list of the documents the Royal Geographical society holds about him.

Colonel Percy Fawcett

Last week's story in the Guardian about the discovery of a lost city in the Amazon jungle, and the search for it by Colonel Percy Fawcett, has been picked up by other papers. See Ben Macintyre's column in The Times, and yesterday's Sunday Times featured a big piece which included an artist's impression of what the city might have looked like.

Amazon explorers find the Lost City of Z

For centuries, explorers and adventurers have ventured into the Amazon jungle in search of a lost civilisation known as El Dorado or the City of Z. Long dismissed as a myth, it now turns out that there was indeed a human settlement in the upper Amazon basin. The Guardian reports that new satellite imagery and fly-overs have revealed more than 200 huge geometric earthworks near Brazil's border with Bolivia. Some date to as early as 200 AD, others to 1283.

The discovery vindicates many of those who have gone in search of the Amazonian 'new world'. One in particular was Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett, who christened the lost El Dorado, the City of Z. In 1925 he set off, along with his son, to find it, leaving a note that nobody should follow them in the event that they did not return. They vanished without a trace and over the past 80 years numerous expeditions have tried to find out what happened, no doubt spurred on by reported sightings. This news story appeared in the Guardian, March 16 1932:

Fawcett's earlier Amazonian reports were to provide an inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World. Naturally, he features in Those Who Dared, but for a brilliant study of the man I would recommend David Grann's The Lost City of Z. A film of the book, starring Brad Pitt as the explorer, should be realeased, later on this year.