Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett (1867-1925?) was a retired military engineer with a great interest in archaeology. Inspired by stories of lost cities in the Amazonian jungle he was convinced that Brazil had been the home to a city that was a colony of Atlantis. His ambition was to discover the location of this city, which he referred to as ‘Z’, and so prove the reality of Atlantis.

Undaunted by an earlier failed expedition, in 1925 he led a second attempt, partly sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society, into the Matto Grosso and disappeared without trace^(a). A book by David Grann, The Lost City of Z, was published^[772] in 2009. There is a film produced by and starring Brad Pitt as Fawcett and his search for Z soon to be made.

In 2010 reports^(b) emerged of the discovery of earthworks constructed by an unknown civilisation in what is now the Amazon jungle near Brazil’s border with Bolivia. So far 200 structures have been exposed with an estimate of 2000 more to be revealed. Dating so far ranges from 200 AD and 1283 AD. So, although remnants of the City of Z may have been found, this discovery is not of Atlantis.

^(a) http://www.phfawcettsweb.org/weblink.htm

^(b) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/05/amazon-dorado-satellite-discovery