Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett (1867 – presumably 1925) was a British archaeologist and explorer who, along with his son, disappeared under unknown circumstances in 1925 during an expedition to find what he believed to be an ancient lost city in the uncharted jungles of Brazil.

Fawcett was born 1867 in Devon, England. In 1886 he received a commission in the Royal Artillery and served in Trincomalee, Ceylon where he also met his wife. Later he worked for the British secret service in North Africa and learned the surveyor's craft. He was also a friend of authors H. Rider Haggard and Arthur Conan Doyle; the latter used his stories as an inspiration for his Lost World.

Fawcett's first expedition to South America was in 1906 when he travelled to Brazil to map a jungle area at the border of Brazil and Bolivia at the behest of the Royal Geographic Society; the society had been commissioned to map the area as a third party, unbiased by local national interests. He arrived in La Paz, Bolivia, in June.

Fawcett made seven expeditions in between 1906 and 1924. He mostly got along with the locals with gifts, patience and courteous behaviour. In 1910 Fawcett made a trip to Heath River to find its source. He returned to Britain serve in the army during World War I, but after the war went back to Brazil to study local wildlife and archaeology.

In 1925 Fawcett took his older son Jack with him look to look for a lost city he had named "Z". Fawcett had studied ancient legends and historical records and become convinced that there was a lost city somewhere in the Matto Grosso region. He also left a note that if they did not return, no one should send a rescue expedition to try to find them; they might suffer their fate.

That last sign of Fawcett was on May 29 1925 when Fawcett telegraphed his wife that he was ready to go into unexplored territory only with Jack and Jack's friend Raleigh Rimmell. They were last reported to be crossing the Upper Xingu, a south-eastern tributary of the Amazon. Then nothing else was heard of them. Many presumed that local Kalapalo Indians had killed them.

During the following decades, various groups mounted several rescue expeditions without results. They heard only various rumours that could not be verified. In addition to reports that Fawcett had been killed by Indians or wild animals, there was a tale that Fawcett had lost his memory and lived out his life as the chief of a tribe of cannibals.

100 would-be-rescuers have died in more than 13 expeditions sent to uncover Fawcett's fate. A 1951 expedition unearthed bones that were later found to be unconnected to Fawcett or his companions. Kalapalo tribesmen captured a 1996 expedition and released them days later when they gave up all their equipment.

On March 21 2004, British newspaper The Guardian reported that according to television director Misha Williams , who had studied Fawcett's private papers, Fawcett had not intended to return to Britain, but rather meant to found a commune in the jungle based on theosophical principles.

External links

• Virtual Exploration Society - Colonel Percy Fawcett
• Veil lifts on jungle mystery of the colonel who vanished