This city became a secondary destination for Fawcett, after "Z". It is believed to be by Portuguese bandeirante João da Silva Guimarães, who wrote that in 1753 he'd discovered the ruins of an ancient city that contained arches, a statue, and a temple with hieroglyphics the city is described in great detail without providing a specific location. Fawcett also found a document known as Manuscript 512, written after explorations made in the sertão of the state of Bahia, and housed at the National Library of Rio de Janeiro. He theorized that a complex civilization once existed in the Amazon region and that isolated ruins may have survived. īased on documentary research, Fawcett had by 1914 formulated ideas about a "lost city" he named "Z" ( Zed) somewhere in the Mato Grosso region of Brazil. These may have been double-nosed Andean tiger hounds. Īfter a 1913 expedition, he supposedly claimed to have seen dogs with double noses. He also developed a theory that the ruins of an ancient city, which he named “Z,” lay hidden in the jungle. In 1911, Fawcett once again left his home and family to return to the Amazon and chart hundreds of miles of unexplored jungle, accompanied by his trusted, longtime exploring companion, Henry Costin, and biologist and polar explorer James Murray. In 1908, he traced the source of the Rio Verde (Brazil) and in 1910 made a journey to Heath River (on the border between Peru and Bolivia) to find its source, having retired from the British army on 19 January. He was mostly amicable with the locals through gifts, patience, and courteous behaviour. įawcett made seven expeditions between 19. He reported other mysterious animals unknown to zoology, such as a small cat-like dog about the size of a foxhound, which he claimed to have seen twice, and the giant Apazauca spider which was said to have poisoned a number of locals. While on the expedition in 1907, Fawcett claimed to have seen and shot a 62-foot (19 m) long giant anaconda, a claim for which he was ridiculed by scientists. The Society had been commissioned to map the area as a third party unbiased by local national interests.
Early expeditions įawcett's first expedition to South America was in 1906 (he was seconded for service there on 2 May ) when at the age of 39 he travelled to Brazil to map a jungle area at the border of Brazil and Bolivia at the behest of the Royal Geographical Society. He became friends with authors Sir Henry Rider Haggard and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the latter used Fawcett's Amazonian field reports as an inspiration for his novel The Lost World. He served for the War Office on Spike Island in County Cork from 1903 to 1906, where he was promoted to major on 11 January 1905. Later, he worked for the British Secret Service in North Africa while pursuing the surveyor's craft. įawcett joined the RGS in 1901, in order to study surveying and mapmaking. He later served in Hong Kong, Malta, and Trincomalee, Ceylon. On 13 January 1896, he was appointed adjutant of the 1st Cornwall (Duke of Cornwall's) Artillery Volunteers, and was promoted to captain on 15 June 1897. This same year, Fawcett met his future wife, Nina Agnes Paterson, whom he married in 1901 and had two sons, Jack (1903-?1925) and Brian (1906–1984), and one daughter, Joan (1910–2005). įawcett attended the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich as a cadet, and was commissioned as a lieutenant of the Royal Artillery on 24 July 1886. Fawcett's father, who had been born in India, was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), while his elder brother, Edward Douglas Fawcett (1866–1960), was a mountain climber, an Eastern occultist, and the author of philosophical books and popular adventure novels.
Fawcett received his early education at Newton Abbot Proprietary College, alongside the sportsman and journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson. Percy Fawcett was born on 18 August 1867 in Torquay, Devon, England, to Edward Boyd Fawcett and Myra Elizabeth (née MacDougall). 2 Posthumous controversy and speculations.
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