Colonel P.H. Fawcett, Inc.
by Mark Rose
November 6, 2009
In 1925, the British explorer and surveyor Percy Fawcett set off into the Brazilian jungle in search of a remnant of Atlantean civilization. Along with him in this ill-fated mission were his son Jack and his son’s best friend. None of them returned. A Hollywood version of this pathetic story—due out next year and starring Brad Pitt—is the latest attempt to make a buck off this tale.
Fawcett took with him a 10-inch tall basalt idol. It’s origins were obscure, but it was, according to Fawcett, given to him by none other than H. Rider Haggard, the celebrated author of such novels about ancient treasures and lost races as King Solomon’s Mines (1885) and She (1887). Haggard, says Fawcett, “obtained it from Brazil, and I firmly believe that it came from one of the lost cities” (in Exploration Fawcett, a posthumous account of his travels through 1924 that was published by his younger son Brian in 1953, the U.S. edition as Lost Trails, Lost Cities).
Fawcett wasn’t deterred by the fact that the idol was an obvious fake:
I could think of only one way of learning the secret of the stone image, and that was by means of psychometry—a method that may evoke scorn from many people, but is widely accepted by others who have managed to keep their minds free from prejudice. Admittedly, the science of psychometry is yet in its infancy in our western countries, though highly developed in the Orient.
He gave the idol to a “psychometrist” who held the figure in complete darkness and wrote down (despite said darkness) these impressions of a time “long prior to the rise of Egypt”:
I see a large irregularly shaped continent stretching from the north coast of Africa across to South America…. The country is hilly, and elaborate temples are partly hewn from the faces of the cliffs, their projecting facades supported by beautifully carved columns. Processions of what look like priests pass in and out of these temples, and a high priest or leader is wearing a breastplate similar to the one on the figure I am holding…. Then I see volcanoes in violent eruption, flaming lava pouring down their sides, and the whole land shakes with a mighty rumbling sound. The sea rises as in a hurricane, and a huge portion of land on both east and west sides disappears under the water, leaving the central part flooded but visible. The majority of the inhabitants are either drowned or destroyed by the earthquakes.
It’s too bad Fawcett took the statuette with him, otherwise we could test his claim that “There is a peculiar property in this stone image to be felt by all who hold it in their hands. It is as though an electric current were flowing up one’s arm, and so strong is it that some people have been forced to lay it down.” Was Fawcett duped by the fake idol and the psychometrist’s tale, or was he on the fringe (or beyond) himself? After all, he did publish a number of articles in The Occult Review.
Fawcett’s disappearance has “inspired” expeditions to find him, books about expeditions to find him, etc. Now we are in the midst of a wave of Fawcett mania, and he and his lost city are becoming a brand. Josh Bernstein filmed an episode of Digging for the Truth about Fawcett in late 2005, but Brad Pitt’s movie is based on this year’s book, The Lost City of Z. The book really downplays Fawcett’s odd beliefs. For example, there’s no mention of Atlantis until next to last chapter. By contrast, the idol, psychometrist, and Atlantis are all featured in Chapter 2 of Exploration Fawcett/Lost Trails, Lost Cities. We’ll just have to wait and see if Atlantis and the fake idol share the stage with Mr. Pitt. Meanwhile, there’s the National Geographic video game, Lost City of Z, released in September. In it, a National Geographic researcher named Abigail has disappeared in the Brazilian jungle. You have to “search for your sister and a legendary lost city!” It’s an interesting lost city, to judge by the screenshots online, which combines a Maya pyramid (Tulum?) and Inca buildings (Machu Picchu).
What’s next? Maybe a battery-powered action figure that marches off to nowhere. That, at least, would be closer to the sad reality of Fawcett’s fate.
Comments posted here do not represent the views or policies of the Archaeological Institute of America.
Mark Rose is AIA online editorial director. After an early interest in historical archaeology, and some time doing cultural resource management work in the Midwest, he trained as a classical archaeologist, (over)specializing in Aegean prehistory. He's now following archaeological hoaxes and Hollywood archaeology, and writing about subjects such as 
Heather Pringle is a freelance science journalist who has been writing about archaeology for more than 20 years. She is the author of Master Plan: Himmler's Scholars and the Holocaust and The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession, and the Everlasting Dead. For more about Heather, see our 
