The Manuscript 512

The section of manuscripts of the National Library of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil has a document from the eighteenth century, "The Manuscript 512".

This document tells an amazing story about the discovery of a city of stone houses and wide streets. The author of this document was J. Barbosa, to inform the Viceroy of Brazil, Luiz Peregrino de Carvalho Menesez about this discovery. The expedition took place in 1753, in the jungles of what is today the state of Bahia, Brazil. Leading the expedition were Francisco Raposo Silva and João Guimarães. In those days, Bahia was dominated by hostiles natives Pataxó and Aimorés, for that reason area was dangerous. The expedition was in search of the alleged Muribeca mines of gold and silver.

Different theories have been proposed to explain the Manuscript 512, a few of them seems to consider the story related in this document false, but if the document itself had been preserved in a national library, must be for a good reason.

The Legend :

During the sixteenth century, a portuguese called Diego Alvarez was the only survivor of a disastrous shipwreck off the coast of Brazil. This man was saved by indigenous Tupi-Guarani. Alvarez decided to stay with them and learn their language. He married a girl named Paraguaçu. and they had several children and grandchildren. One of them, who lived for a long time with the native Tupi, called Muribeca.

After a trip to the interior of the continent, guided by native Tapuais, Muribeca found a rich mine of gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds and rubies. Over time, organized the operation of the mine and became rich, because selling gold nuggets and gemstones in the port of Bahia (Salvador today).

Muribeca had a son whose name was Roberio Dias, he was very ambitious and he asked the king of Portugal to give him the title of marquis. The king accepted but asked Dias to reveal the location of the mines in exchange for the title.

When the expedition almost arrived to Bahia, Dias convinced the king's official to open the letter containing the title of marquis. He found only a minor title, as the captain of a military mission.

For that reason he refused to show the way to the mines, and was imprisoned for many years. He died in 1622 and took with him to the grave the secret of the exact location of the mines of his father, Muribeca.

Since then, many expeditions tried to find the mines. Francisco Raposo sought the ghostly mines of gold and silver Muribeca, whose physical location was unknown.

An important document about Muribeca mines appeared in 1839, in Volume I of the newspaper Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute. From that document :

Francisco Raposo left in charge of eighteen settlers, and after many adventures, beyond a huge muddy area, had to go through rugged mountains. Just made ​​it through to the other party were clear about the distance, the virgin forest. Were sent to a few natives in recognition and, when they returned, they said they had found the ruins of a lost city.

We explore the area and we realized that we were entering an ancient city inhabited. We walked among the ruins of the city and watched the houses destroyed excited thinking that in the distant past must have been fervent actividad.A the entrance were three arches. The plant was much higher than the two sides and had some unknown characters engraved on the piedra.Luego we move into the ruins of the city, but found no sign of recent human presence. Everything was abandoned for centuries or perhaps millennia. In the center of the citadel was a square with a statue of a man who pointed north. On one side of the square was a large building in ruins. On the exterior, appeared to be a great temple destroyed by a devastating earthquake. In the main square in front of a large river flowed, while the other side of the watercourse had fields with large numbers of animals, birds and deer, to which our presence strangely asustaba.Navegamos the river for three days and found several stones which were incised strange signs, similar to the arch of the entrance to the city. We were in the mining area, as it was easy to see large nuggets of gold on the banks of the river.

Many adventurers searched of the lost city.

Teodoro Sampaio, in 1878 claimed to have found in the San Francisco River several caves with petroglyphs and strange incisions, but not the mythical city.

In 1913, English Colonel O 'Sullivan Beare said to have reached Muribeca mines, on the right bank of the Rio San Franciscor. He said he had seen in the distance the ruins of the lost city, almost completely covered by the dense jungle, but could not come closer due low provisions and storm that was about to begin.

Also the famous Percy Fawcett, decided to organize an expedition in 1921. In fact, Fawcett was interested mainly in Mato Grosso area for several reasons. Fawcett found many petroglyphs similar to those described in the Manuscript 512, but failed to find the lost city.

Fawcett argued that "Z" (how he called it), was a city different from the Manuscript 512, the "City of Raposo", the City "Z", according to him was a site of a prehistoric culture of white race, the Atlanteans. Later, he admitted that was a possibility that both places were the same.

Debunking Manuscript 512 :

The manuscript 512 was used as an element of national identity for a newly independent nation as it was Brazil in 1839, published and associated with the legend of the "Minas de Moribeca".

By 1880, began the theory that the Manuscript 512 spoke in symbolic form, the characteristics of the rock formations of the Diamantina Plateau.

The german historian Hermann Kruse and Pedro Calmon who associated the Manuscript 512 with shipments of Guimarães, a trailblazer who toured the area described in the paper, circa 1752. However, Guimarães expedition lasted only two years and samples brought from the mines found by him, were examined and showed that they had no value.

ramanavimana.blogspot.com...
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libretachatarra.blogspot.com...

reply to post by Trueman

Muribeca found a rich mine of gold, silver, diamonds, emeralds and rubies.

All in one mine??


I'd have to say hugely embellished legend.

reply to post by Trueman


Well that was interesting. Great thread. I was hoping you had the inside info as to thee where abouts of our mine.
Anyway, keep looking and when you find something we can move on ? Well try not to be so obvious. Send me a U2U.

SnF

reply to post by randyvs


Haha......ok brother.

reply to post by Chamberf=6


Well, according to the data, it is not just a mine. They talk about a "Lost City", maybe all those "goodies" were collected from different places and brought to that city. Even Fawcett thought they were 2 sites. Years later he organized a second expedition, he never came back.

reply to post by Trueman


Very interesting read. Well written. SnF. We need more quality threads like this.

I've done a lot of research in the past about the fabled cities being hunted for during the Inquisition. Pretty much, the Spaniards tortured the locals to reveal information, and nothing has ever been found.

There's much mystery involved. Always an interesting topic for me.

reply to post by Druid42


Thank you. Most of my sources are not in english language, also to consider this kind of documents are written in archaic languages. This time I was lucky to find modern spanish sources. Google translations helps too.

Now, that's just darn interesting!

I suspect that some parts of the story may have been ...enhanced... but remembering just how bad mapping techniques were before the 1900's, it wouldn't surprise me if the stories were a combination of sightings of more than one place.

If I could just get a grant for about $200,000 I would hie myself down there and start looking into it!

Thanks for the research on this interesting story!

reply to post by Byrd


Thank you for your great comments. What you said Is true, the accuracy of this information goes in accordance to the resources available in those days. But I do believe there are more than one lost city between the Andes and the Amazon rainforest. Remember Paititi - El Dorado - El Gran Pajaten, just to mention 3 names. Maybe we want to believe there are the same one.

reply to post by Trueman


Rio de Janeiro you say? Very strange considering in my post today it points to the same location.....literally. What is the significance of this place? look

reply to post by Lee78


Wow, thanks for adding such a great info. Just S&F your thread. Just want to mention we talk about Bahia, not Rio, but still close enough.

This actually sounds a lot like the Inca legend of Paititi only the names have been changed(a la Dragnet). Whether it's about the same place or not, it's an interesting subject nonetheless.

Paititi wiki

Also, the show "Solving History"(aka Mystery Investigator)did an episode on the "Lost City of Gold" which also covers this info and much more.





**edit**Yay! First time to try and embed Youtube videos and it worked without a hitch(I've heard and seen 'horror' stories about the attempts of other's).

Plus, I have to ask....does anyone think that Olly Steeds has a passing resemblance to Harry Connick, Jr.(or vice versa)?

reply to post by Mad Simian


The posible location of the Paititi and the Lost City and mines described by the Manusccript 512 seems to be different. That's why I believe there are more than one "Lost Cities" in the vast Amazon Rainforest - Andes area.

Thanks for the videos.

reply to post by Trueman


And Byrd is more than eager to find all of them. I knew she was really Lara Croft deep down inside despite how she acts on the board.

reply to post by Mad Simian


I didn't know Byrd is a girl.

reply to post by Trueman


Well, I've seen her make reference to a 'husband' so I assume she's a 'she'.

Originally posted by Mad Simian
reply to post by Trueman

 

Well, I've seen her make reference to a 'husband' so I assume she's a 'she'.

Well, I guess we can say the husband is a Lucky guy.

Originally posted by Byrd
Now, that's just darn interesting!

I suspect that some parts of the story may have been ...enhanced... but remembering just how bad mapping techniques were before the 1900's, it wouldn't surprise me if the stories were a combination of sightings of more than one place.

If I could just get a grant for about $200,000 I would hie myself down there and start looking into it!

Thanks for the research on this interesting story!

They used to say that the Amazon could only support small tribes due to a lack of farmable soil. Then they found hundreds of acres of manmade soil that contained ash and human waste. The ratios suggest a civilization that had a firm grasp on farming and the nutrition needs of the crops.

They have found ruins of some fairly large city/states since then. Very interesting stuff.

I think there are more than a few lost cities in the jungles of south america. It doesn't take the jungle long to retake what man had previously claimed.

Thanks for this thread, got me very interested so I decided to research more on Percy Fawcett, his story is unbelievable
I read alot of my information about him here

Percy Fawcett Stories

Also his wiki is a good read to, you can find that your clever selves