The Ill-Fated 1925 Expedition of Col. Percy Fawcett
by Travis Simpkins
By the dawn of the 20th Century, even to the most adventurous of explorers, the concept of the lost city of El Dorado was considered to be a myth. However, in 1911, when Hiram Bingham discovered Machu Picchu, the imaginations of other archaeologists began to soar. Col. Percy Fawcett, explorer and amateur archaeologist, was one such dreamer. He believed that the Incas had fled inland to the Amazon and surely there was another lost city waiting to be found. Basing his knowledge on a 1753 Portuguese manuscript that mentioned a silver city, Fawcett called the lost treasure trove "The Lost City of Z." Produced in 2011 for PBS, Secrets of the Dead: Lost in the Amazon takes a look at Fawcett's final ill-fated 1925 expedition to find the Lost City of Z, during which he mysteriously vanished. The general consensus is that he was likely killed by hostile natives, a theory supported when his gold ring turned up at a disreputable Brazilian shop in the 1970's. Percy Fawcett was an Indiana Jones-like figure, whose exploits inspired public fascination. He knew the area of the Amazon, having surveyed the region in the early 1900's and undergone a failed attempt to find the Lost City of Z in 1921. However, in 1925, Fawcett was underfunded and ill-prepared, with only his son, his son's friend and a few natives to man the trip. Beyond obvious dangers of violence and accidents, they would have to contend with intense heat, lack of water, snakes and insects. They were never seen again. In 1928, three years after Fawcett's last communication, a rescue mission was launched but failed to turn up any definitive evidence of their fate. In this documentary, modern explorer Niall McCann follows Fawcett's route to his last camp site, and the journey (although the mystery still remains) is fascinating.
