A few weeks ago, a majestic waterway that flows and meanders through the jungle before feeding the most majestic of all rivers, the Amazon, was rapidly drying up. As the Rio Negro — itself one of the most voluminous rivers in the world — diminished during a particularly dry spell, something extraordinary emerged on its newly revealed riverbanks. With the water receding to record levels, rock carvings of human faces that were made perhaps 2,000 years ago appeared.
These faces were the work of the inhabitants of a long-lost pre-Columbian Indigenous village. They represent the culture of a society that remains largely mysterious to us and one which has long been lost to the sands of time. The time-travelling faces should remind us that nothing can last forever, that societies rise and fall and that, ultimately, we are all only passing through. Here today, gone tomorrow.