Michel Peissel

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Michel Peissel (born in Paris in 1937) is a French anthropologist, explorer and author who writes in English and speaks fluent Tibetan. At the age of 21, he recorded 14 yet unknown Mayan archeological sites in Quintana Roo, Mexico. He has written twenty books mostly on his Himalayan and Tibetan expeditions.

1 Biography
- 1.1 Career
  - 1.1.1 Books
  - 1.1.2 Films
2 References

[edit] Biography

Raised as a child in England he later studied a year at Oxford and the Harvard Business School and holds a Doctorate in (Tibetan) Ethnology from the Sorbonne, Paris.

[edit] Career

In 1958 at the age of 21 - stranded on the coast of Quintana-Roo,Mexico,- he walked 200 miles down the coast to Belize discovering on the way 14 yet unrecorded Mayan archeological sites, meeting real mayan natives, knowing the mexican history and the chicleros, tasting caguama tourtle, non- nate tourtle eggs and the tortillas, making this trip one of the most incredible trip ever described. This journey changed his life, leaving the Harvard Business School after a year, he decided to study anthropology and explore the last unknown regions of Tibet and the Himalayas. In 1959, he organised his first Himalayan expedition out of Harvard to study the Sherpas of the Everest district. In 1964 he set out across the Himalayas to explore Mustang, a minute Tibetan speaking kingdom whose identity had escaped the attention of both scholars and the general public.' His written account of the expedition , 'Mustang: A Lost Tibetan Kingdom ' an international best seller was published in 1967. This himalayan expedition was followed by 28 others to the remotest regions of the Tibetan speaking world. In 1968 he became one of the first foreigners to cross Bhutan and study it's little known Eastern districts. He then performed the first detailed study of the Kingdom of Zanskar in Kashmir, later studying the Minaro(Dards) of Baltistan and Ladakh while attempting to locate precisely the "land of the gold digging ants" of Herodotus. A pioneer of the sport of shooting up rapids in 1973 he crossed the Himalayas by hovercraft between Mt. Annapurna and Mt. Dhaulaghiri. Later he travelled by hovercraft up the Ganges and down the eastern coast of Yucatan, after having invented and patented the first single fan hovercraft. In 1986 he became one of the very first foreigners to penetrate Tsari and the gorges of the Brhamapoutra in tropical Tibet. In 1994 he led an expedition to locate the elusive source of the Mekong River following the Dza Nak (the black Mekong, the historical main branch of the river) thus discovering the historical source of Asia's third longest river. Ten years later the Chinese claimed that the geographical source (the farthest from the sea) lies at the headwaters of the white Mekong which satellite photos show to be 4500 meters longer than the historical branch whose source was found by Dr Peissel. Thus like the Mississippi, the Yellow river and countless other rivers the Mekong has a geographical source and a historical source. In 1987 in relation with Mexican archeologists Peissel built a giant sea going Mayan dugout canoe and paddled and sailed 500 miles down the Yucatan coast and that of Belise to demonstrate the role of maritime commerce by the Chontal Itzas in the 10th century collapse of the Mayan lowland cities. In 1998 having built a replica of a Viking long boat Peissel and a crew of six rowed and sailed up de river Dvina and down the Dniepre 2400 km across the Soviet Union from the Baltic to the Black Sea. An expedition in the wake of the Varangians the founding fathers of the Russian monarchy in the 8th century.

MichelPeissel is an emeritus member of the New York Explorers Club and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society

[edit] Books

"The Lost World of Quintana Roo".New York E.P.Dutton,1962 and Hodder and Stoughton,1964
"Tiger for Breakfast:the story of Boris of Katmandu": E.P.Dutton,1966 and Hodder and Stoughton 1967
"Mustang a Lost Tibetan Kingdom".New York:E.P.Dutton 1967 and London Collins-Harvill,1968
"The Cavaliers of Kham, the secret war in Tibet" London:Heinemann1972,and Boston:Little, Brown & Co. 1973
"The Great Himalayan Passage" Collins 1974, and Boston: Little, Brown & Co.1975
"Himalaya, continent Secret" Paris, Flammarion 1975
"Les Portes de l'Or" Paris, Robert Laffont 1978
"Zanskar the Hidden Kingdom".New York E.P.Dutton 1979 and London: Collins-Harvill 1980
"The Ant's Gold, discovering the Greek Eldorado"London:Collins-Harvill 1984
"Royaumes de l'Himalaya".Paris:Bordas & Fils 1986
"Itza, le mystere du Naufrage Maya".Paris: Robert Laffont 1989
"La Route de l'Ambre".Paris :Robert Laffont 1992
"The Last Barbarians, the discovery of the source iof the Mekong". New York:Henry Holt & Company 1997,and London Souvenir Press 1998
"Le Dernier Horizon". Paris: Robert Laffont 2001
"Tibet, the Secret Continent".London Cassell Illustrated,2002,and New York: St Martin's Press 2003
"Tibetan Pilgrimage" New York: Abrams 2005

[edit] Films

Peissel has produced, directed or initiated 22 documentary films on his expeditions, including a 4 part series in 1980 by the BBC on "Zanskar, the Last Place on Earth", a Smithsonian exploration special for the Arts and Entertainment Channel on the source of the Mekong etc...