El Dorado | The City of Gold

Throughout time, people across the world told each other tales of how they came to be. Of heroes and monsters, romance and tragedy, death and rebirth. Mythology helped shape the ancient world, explaining the unexplainable. This is Mythology Unleashed. Legend has it, that deep within the jungles of South America, lies a hidden city crafted entirely from gold. Every structure, every home, every beam and tile were said to be composed of solid gold. Even the roads were said to be paved with a valuable metal. The city was called El Dorado, the Gilded One. Stories of this lost city dripping with wealth has fueled the ambitions of treasure hunters and explorers for centuries. But curiously enough, in the earliest legends of El Dorado, El Dorado is not a city at all. The origins of El Dorado come from the mythology of the Muisca people of Colombia. As per Juan Rodriguez Fraley's El Carnero, the Muisca practiced a ritual for every newly appointed king. When a new leader was appointed, one of the ceremonial rituals required the new king to be brought to Lake Guadavira, where he would be stripped and coated in gold dust. He would then be placed upon a highly decorated raft with his attendants and piles of gold and precious stones. The raft would be rowed to the center of the lake, where the king would wash the gold dust from his body, as his attendants would throw pieces of the gold and stones into the lake. This ritual was intended as a sacrificial offering to the Muisca god Chaminigagua, so that he may grant the new leader blessings and good omens. To the Muisca, El Dorado was not a city, but the king at the center of this ritual. Gold and stones found in the area by Spanish conquistadors originating from this sacred ritual would go on to become the seeds of the El Dorado legend that we know today. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans, still fascinated by the New World, believed that a hidden city of immense wealth existed somewhere in its sparsely documented regions. Illustrations of El Dorado's location on maps of the time only intensified this belief, as it only seemed to confirm that the city of El Dorado truly did exist. Countless expeditions were mounted to search for this city and to claim its treasure, but all would end in failure. In 1545, conquistadors Lazaro Fante and Hernan Perez de Quesada attempted to drain Lake Guadavira. As they did so, they found gold all along its shores, fueling their suspicion that the lake contained unfathomable treasure. After three months, they were unable to drain the lake sufficiently to reach any gold or stones deep within. Another venture in 1909 involved the English company, Contractor Limited, who sought to drain the lake by digging a tunnel beneath it. But when the lake was emptied, the soft mud at the bottom of the crater was too unstable to support any weight. The mud quickly hardened in the sun, and it also solidified the drainage tunnel beneath, allowing the lake to refill. In 1965, all searches came to a halt when the Colombian government declared the lake a protected area. Unfortunately, the ever-growing surge in gold hunting has led to the mass looting of historical treasures for monetary gain, robbing the scientific community and the world of a chance to study artifacts and learn more about the ancient cultures who crafted these pieces. El Dorado has yet to be found anywhere in South America. Time and time again, greed has driven treasure hunters far and wide, even to their death in search of it. The loss of cultural artifacts, archaeological knowledge, and human lives have made the chase for the El Dorado legend disadvantageous to society. However, dreaming costs nothing, and romantic tales of wealth and lost cities filled with treasure will always be alive.