At the end of the 1970s, during iron ore exploration in Carajás, in the northeast of Pará, gold was accidentally found in Serra de Andorinhas. The news spread quickly, starting a race in search of El Dorado that, years later, in 1980, would culminate in Serra Pelada.
Overnight, an entire mountain was divided into shacks. The gold that emerged from the earth showed the way through the gravel veins, and a 150 m high mountain was removed “in the bag”, today becoming a lake 150 m deep.
One hundred and fifteen thousand men mined one hundred tons of gold in what was the largest open-pit mine in the world, and the second largest concentration of human labor after the Pyramids of Egypt.
A recent part of Brazil's history represented on a table. It proves that, one day, faith, bags and hope moved a mountain.
