The Lost City of Z: Percy Fawcett's Final Expedition

The Mystery

In 1925, Lieutenant Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett disappeared into the Brazilian Amazon along with his eldest son Jack and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimmell. They were searching for what Fawcett called "Z" — an ancient lost city he believed existed deep in the Mato Grosso region.

Fawcett was no amateur. He was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society with years of surveying experience in South America. His previous expeditions had mapped uncharted territory and encountered indigenous groups never before contacted by outsiders.

What Josh Gates Found

In Season 1 of Expedition Unknown, Josh Gates traveled to the Mato Grosso region of Brazil to investigate what happened to the Fawcett expedition. Working with local guides and indigenous Kalapalo people, Gates explored the route Fawcett likely took on his final journey.

The Kalapalo oral history suggests that Fawcett and his companions were killed after traveling east from the Xingu River. But the exact circumstances and location remain disputed nearly a century later.

Historical Context

What makes the Fawcett story so compelling is that he may not have been entirely wrong. In 2018, archaeologists using LIDAR technology revealed that the Amazon once supported complex civilizations with large urban centers connected by road networks. The pre-Columbian settlements in the Xingu region — now called Kuhikugu — featured planned towns with plazas, roads, and sophisticated water management.

Fawcett's "Z" may have been a garbled account of these very real ancient cities, passed down through centuries of indigenous oral tradition.

Why It Matters

The search for the Lost City of Z represents something fundamental about exploration: the tension between Western assumptions about "discovery" and the knowledge that indigenous peoples have always held about their own lands. The cities Fawcett sought weren't lost — they were simply unknown to Europeans.

Today, remote sensing technology is revealing that the Amazon was far more densely populated and architecturally sophisticated than anyone imagined just decades ago. Fawcett's obsession, while ultimately fatal, pointed toward a truth that archaeology is only now beginning to fully appreciate.

Visit the Region

The Xingu Indigenous Park in Mato Grosso, Brazil protects some of the archaeological sites related to Fawcett's search. While access is restricted to protect indigenous communities, the nearby city of Canarana serves as a gateway to understanding this region's deep history.