Manoa El Dorado, Lake Parime, the Lost City of Gold and the Headless People

Once again we get into the mysterious 17th century and weird terrestrial alterations pertaining to our 1600s. Could things like that be related to this world being somewhat different during the antediluvian times? May be it could, but at this moment we do not know for sure. Hopefully, at some point, we are able to figure this stuff out, but for right now, we have what we have. In this case we have this little story about a city, and a lake which vanished with no trace.

Lake Parime and Manoa City
Lake Parime is a legendary lake located in South America. It was reputedly the location of the fabled city of El Dorado, also known as Manoa, much sought-after by European explorers. Repeated attempts to find the lake failed to confirm its existence, and it was dismissed as a myth along with the city. The search for Lake Parime led explorers to map the rivers and other features of southern Venezuela, northern Brazil, and southwestern Guyana before the lake's existence was definitively disproved in the early 19th century. Some explorers proposed that the seasonal flooding of the Rupununi savannah may have been misidentified as a lake. Recent geological investigations suggest that a lake may have existed in northern Brazil, but that it dried up some time in the 18th century. Both "Manoa" and "Parime" are believed to mean "big lake".
  • An additional theory is that Lake Parime did actually exist, and was drained abruptly in June 1690 when an intensity IX (Violent) earthquake opened a bedrock fault, forming a rift or a graben that permitted the water to flow into the Rio Branco.
Guiana_el_DOrado.jpg

Essentially, the story goes like this. Allegedly, there was this Lake Parime in the North-Eastern quarter of South America. It was well mapped, and apparently quite nicely measured. Personally, I would like to know where the depth information is coming from
  • Max. Length: 250 miles (400 km)
  • Max. Width: 50 miles (80 km)
  • Surface Area: 80,000 square kilometres
  • Max. Depth: 120 metres (390 ft)
I did say "mapped" above, for this is what it looks like. Yet, the narrative dictates the following:
  • Sir Walter Raleigh began the exploration of the Guianas in earnest in 1594 and described the city of Manoa, which he believed to be the legendary city of El Dorado, as being located on Lake Parime far up the Orinoco River in Venezuela.
  • Much of his exploration is documented in his books The Discoverie of the Large, Rich, and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana, published first in 1596, and The Discovery of Guiana, and the Journal of the Second Voyage Thereto, published in 1606.
  • How much of Raleigh's work is true and how much is fabricated remains unclear:
    • His account indicates that he only succeeded in navigating up the Orinoco as far as Angostura, and did not come close to the supposed location of Lake Parime.
  • Raleigh says of the lake:
    • I have been assured by such of the Spaniards as have seen Manoa, the imperial city of Guiana, which the Spaniards call El Dorado, that for the greatness, for the riches, and for the excellent seat, it far exceedeth any of the world, at least of so much of the world as is known to the Spanish nation. It is founded upon a lake of salt water of 200 leagues long, like unto Mare Caspium.
  • According to Raleigh, the lake itself was the source of the gold possessed by the people of Manoa:
    • Most of the gold which they made in plates and images was not severed from the stone, but on the lake of Manoa, and in a multitude of other rivers, they gathered it in grains of perfect gold and in pieces as big as small stones.
As a result of Raleigh's work, maps began to appear depicting El Dorado and Lake Parime. One of the first was the elder Jodocus Hondius' Nieuwe Caerte van het Wonderbaer ende Goudrycke Landt Guiana, which was published in 1598. Hondius' map depicts an elongated Lake Parime south of the Orinoco River, with the majority of the lake positioned south of the equator, and with Manoa on the northern shore, towards the eastern half of the lake. Manoa is noted as "the greatest city in the entire world". Hondius' map was subsequently copied by Theodore de Bry and published in his popular Grands Voyages in 1599. When Hondius published a completely revised edition of Mercator's Atlas in 1608, it included a map of South America featuring Lake Parime with the majority of the lake located south of the equator, and with Manoa again along the northern shore, although not quite so far east.
  • Cartographer Guillaume Delisle was among the first to cast doubts on the lake's existence. In a map of Guyana printed in 1730, he included an outline of the lake, then replaced it with the notation: "It is in these regions that most authors place the Lake Parime and the City of Manoa of El Dorado." Delisle reluctantly included a lake in southwestern Guyana on several subsequent maps, but did not name it or the city of Manoa.
  • The lake was printed on maps throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and up until the early 19th century. Some cartographers and naturalists moved the lake more to the southeast of the Orinoco River and north of the Amazon river, often situating it south of the mountains that border Venezuela, Guiana, and Brazil. However, by the late 18th century, failure to confirm the lake's existence led to its removal from most maps. A 1792 map of the Rio Branco by José Joaquin Freire shows no sign of a lake, although there is now a Parimé River.
KD: Basically, above we have nothing but copy and pastes from the related Wikipedia page.

Related Maps
Let us see what maps related to this City of Manoa, and Lake Parime we have. Surprisingly there were quite a few produced, which, by itself, is bizarre. Well, I think it's bizarre, for it falls into those cartographic fantasies territory I choose not to trust.

These are just a few. There are many more out there, but I think this is plenty to start working with:
From these older maps we can see that this Lake Parime is sitting on the Equator. The Amazon River is located to the South, Orinoco River to the North, and Rio Negro to the West.

Personally I find the below map to be the most interesting one, but I am unable to find an unfolded version. Interesting, that for 1550s, this map has one too many cities mentioned.

Manoa_map.jpg


The City of Manoa
This is highly questionable that this City of Manoa looked anything like what we can see in the image below, but the mere fact that we have this depiction should be noteworthy.
Manoa_Dorado.jpg


Juan or Johannes Martines/z
Juan could as well mean Johannes, but search engines do not see it that way, therefore this difference could be important for a researcher. Anyways, Mr. Martines was allegedly the first one to end up in this Manoa City. Following the genre, he ended up in the city blindfolded.

1896 Macmillan's Magazine
martinez.jpg


Inconsistencies
It's easy to notice, that some of the maps place this Manoa City on the West side of the lake, while other maps place it on the North side. It's hard to say what the reason for this discrepancy could be. If you have any suggestions, please share.

Manoa_lake_3.jpg


In the Books
To be honest, there is a butt load of 17th/18th century information on this Manoa City, and the Lake Parime in Google Books. Below are a few cut outs for the interested ones. Interesting that European type cities are being mentioned.
How do lakes and cities disappear from the maps? Probably the exact same way they happen to pop up on the same maps but in different locations. We are being told that it takes a very, very, very long time for lakes, mountains, or whatever else to form. We are talking about hundreds of thousands, or millions of years here. Yet our maps present a totally different picture, where it takes way less. These same very maps make us question the natural character of these geographical changes.

So, where did this Lake Parime go? Let us take a look at the today's map and compare it with what we had in the 17th century.

manoa_lake_Parime_1.jpg

manoa_lake_Parime_2.jpg

Well, where did the lake, and the city go?

Hybrids to blame?
I am not sure if this creature here qualifies as a hybrid, but it sure looks very different from what a common human should look like. I think if we follow this logic here:
  • Completely destroy them - the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites - as the Lord your God has commanded you.
... we could guess where all the cities in the area, as well as the lake went to. This 1650s +/- time span spared no weird creatures, or so it seems.

hybrid_amazon.jpg

Source

Here is what Wikipedia has to say bout this bizarre headless creature:
  • Various species of mythical headless men were rumored, in antiquity and later, to inhabit remote parts of the world. They are variously known as Akephaloi or Blemmyes, and described as lacking a head, with their facial features on their chest. These were at first described as inhabitants of the Nile system. Later traditions confined their habitat to a particular island in the Brison(e) River, or shifted it to India.
  • Blemmyes are said to occur in two types: with eyes on the chest or with the eyes on the shoulders.​
  • Epiphagi, a variant name for the headless people of the Brisone, is sometimes used as a term referring strictly to the eyes-on-the-shoulders type.
So we appear to have both, EPIPHAGI and the "eyes on the chest" one.

headless_2.jpg

Can't help it: Check our "ancient" Alexander the Great out, and say that he does not look like a medieval knight in this 1445 depiction below.

alexander_the_great.jpg


RA-RA-RA-RA
In the process noticed, that the area in question has pretty interesting locality names. Those little coincidences are always bizarre, but they play into the totality of circumstances. Here is a few:
  • Roraima
  • Caracara
  • Iracema
Roraima Today
Roraima is the northernmost and least populated state of Brazil, located in the Amazon region. It borders the states of Amazonas and Pará, and the countries of Venezuela and Guyana. The population is approximately 450,000 (2010) and the capital is Boa Vista. Roraima is the Brazilian state with the fewest municipalities, 15 in total.
roraima.jpg

I don't know about you, but I get this feeling that our wonderful City of Gold Manoa, together with Lake Parime were annihilated by some powerful forces some other places on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean head a pleasure of experiencing. Here is what the general vicinity of this area incorporates. Pretty sure the narrative considers these things below to be natural. Yet, it appears that whatever did this to them rocks, had to also kill all the fish together with the lake, to include every single city in the area.
vicinity.jpg


vicinity_2.jpg


vicinity_3.jpg


vicinity_4.jpg


Mount Roraima
This nicely looking terrain feature is situated a couple hundred miles north from our Lake Parime. You can read the generic stuff about this mountain on the wiki page:
mount_roraima.jpg

Here is what a different Wikipedia article has to add:
  • Mount Roraima is also known as Roraima Tepui
  • The word tepui means "house of the gods" in the native tongue of the Pemon
  • Tepui - Wikipedia


KD: Sounds like it's fairly safe to say, that this Manoa El Dorado is not there any more. 17th century was pretty vicious in its judgement...
 
Back
Top