ninme

Fascinating story. Brad Pitt even makes an appearance.

The Times – Hail, Britain’s Indiana Jones of the Amazon
The newly discovered rainforest civilisation shows that deforestation is not just vandalism but a crime against history, by Ben Macintyre

In 1925 the British explorer Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett plunged into the Amazon forest in search of a lost civilisation he had named the City of Z. He was never seen again.

Fawcett’s disappearance remains an enduring and intriguing mystery. A former spy and veteran of the Somme, he became convinced, based on a combination of serious research, intensive fieldwork, wishful thinking and clairvoyance, that the Amazon had once been the cradle of a mighty civilisation. He was widely dismissed as a crackpot.

Fawcett had a tremendous moustache on his stiff upper-lip, and a self-belief that was almost idolatrous. He was fearless and tough as teak, reciting Romantic poetry as he waded through the fly-infested Mato Grosso. He was slightly mad. But, astonishingly, he was also right.

And of course, the Avatar tie-in:

His belief in a lost empire was dismissed as quixotic fantasy, a pipe dream. But the legend persisted and still grips our imaginations today: the hidden, parallel civilisation, noble, proud and in tune with elemental nature. This, in essence, is the plot of Avatar, James Cameron’s new blockbuster, and every other story of a lost, better place. The British explorer- archaeologist was the inspiration for Indiana Jones; Brad Pitt is slated to play him in the film of Grann’s book. Fawcett is still with us.

Of course, unlike the blue hippy-fantasies of Avatar, the Amazonian lost peoples probably tended more towards killing and eating each other but we mustn’t let that get in the way of the fantasy. I bet the art and monuments are still cool.