The Lost City Of Z.
Hey,
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Is it all over now?
Are we finally thawed out?
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Up until Saturday we still had snow lying and there was very treacherous ice underfoot but then we experienced rain for most of yesterday.
This has resulted in everything being cleared away so comprehensively that the place looks normal again.
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I do love it when it snows, especially in time for Christmas, but we have all been confined to the house a lot and everyone has been going a bit stir crazy here.
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Perhaps spring will soon be sprung!
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Interesting news afoot….as Sherlock Holmes might have said.
Did you read about the Lost City that may have been found, aided by the wonderful Google Earth?
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There have always been men who searched for the fabled Eldorado.
The dream being that somewhere, deep in the Amazon jungle, there is a fabulous city built by an ancient civilisation and containing gold and treasure.
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The belief probably began in the early 1500′s with the conquistadors.
The Aztec city of Tenochtitlan, in Mexico, was discovered by Hernan Cortez in 1519.
This was followed in the 1530′s by Francisco Pizarro conquering the whole Incan civilisation, with all of it’s gold, in Peru.
Perhaps forming the dream of more cities of gold as yet undiscovered.
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This dream was fuelled through the centuries by the stories of stumbling upon lost cities while lost in the jungle, which were told by men who had wandered there.
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A famous British explorer called Colonel Percy Fawcett became obsessed by the desire to find this fabled city, which he called the City Of Z.
He made one expedition in 1920, determined to find a place that most people doubted even existed, but was unsuccessful.
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Eventually, in1925, he set off on a second expedition to prove that his detractors wrong.
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He was never seen again.
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In 1925 the Royal Geographical Society declared him to be missing.
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The recent interest in the Lost City was stirred up when a man called Alceu Ranzi saw man-made geometrical shapes in the jungle while flying over it.
He was eventually joined by a fellow expert called Martti Parsinnen and they began working on the idea that an ancient city had existed in that area.
In about 2006 they were eventually .given permission to begin their excavations.
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It is here that Google Earth has helped immeasurably because the satellite images have helped them to pinpoint the sites accurately.
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As for poor Colonel Percy Fawcett, he has eventually been proved to be correct in his beliefs regarding the mysterious City Of Z.
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Indeed he will soon be brought to public notice when a film, starring Brad Pitt as the Colonel himself, is released.
It will be The Lost City Of Z.
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Better late recognition rather than none!
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J
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