Science and Space Home Innovation and Tech Archaeology Earth Health and Human Body Prehistoric World Space Photos Videos The sc ene depi c t ed i n t hi s anc i ent ar t w or k , on di spl ay at t he Gol d Museum i n Bogot a, Col ombi a, show s t he or i gi n of t he El Dor ado myt h. Legend t el l s of a Mui sc a k i ng w ho w oul d c over hi msel f i n gol d dust dur i ng f est i val s, t hen di ve f r om a r af t i nt o Lak e Guat avi t a. Photograph by Mauricio Duenas/AFP/Getty Images By Willie Drye The lust for gold spans all eras, races, and nationalities. To possess any amount of gold seems to ignite an insatiable desire to obtain more. Through the centuries, this passion gave rise to the enduring tale of a city of gold. In the 16th and 17th centuries, Europeans believed that somewhere in the New World there was a place of immense wealth known as El Dorado. Their searches for this treasure wasted countless lives, drove at least one man to suicide, and put another man under the executioner's ax. Shar e 9 Email More Vi deos Machu Picchu Akapana Pyramid Terra Cotta Warriors Angkor Wat Mesopotamia On Friday, March 15, at our Washington, D.C., headquarters, National Geographic hosted TEDxDeExtinction, a daylong conference on species- revival science and ethics convened by Revive & Restore. The talks are over, but the coverage and conversation continue, in our new cover story on de- extinction, at National Geographic News, on TVand on Twitter: Ex pl or er Moment of t he Week Greg Goldsmith surveys Costa Rica's famous montane cloud forest. Ex pl or i ng t he Far t hest Reac hes A simple question propels us to look and gofar from home. What's out there? ADVERTISEMENT Ar c haeol ogy Games Myst er y of Cl eopat r a Investigate a murder in Cleopatra's palace. Li l l y Wu and t he Ter r a Connect:
Search Home El Dor ado Legend Snar ed Si r Wal t er Ral ei gh Daily News The Magazine Maps Science Education Games Events Blogs Movies Explorers Apps Trips Video Photography Animals Environment Travel Adventure Television Kids Subscriptions Shop El Dorado Legend -- National Geographic http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/archaeology/el-dorado/[3/26/2013 1:50:48 PM] 9 More "El Dorado shifted geographical locations until finally it simply meant a source of untold riches somewhere in the Americas," says J im Griffith, a folklorist in Tucson, Arizona. But this place of immeasurable riches hasn't been found. The origins of El Dorado lie deep in South America. And like all enduring legends, the tale of El Dorado contains some scraps of truth. When Spanish explorers reached South America in the early 16th century, they heard stories about a tribe of natives high in the Andes mountains in what is now Colombia. When a new chieftain rose to power, his rule began with a ceremony at Lake Guatavita. Accounts of the ceremony vary, but they consistently say the new ruler was covered with gold dust, and that gold and precious jewels were thrown into the lake to appease a god that lived underwater. The Spaniards started calling this golden chief El Dorado, "the gilded one." The ceremony of the gilded man supposedly ended in the late 15th century when El Dorado and his subjects were conquered by another tribe. But the Spaniards and other Europeans had found so much gold among the natives along the continent's northern coast that they believed there had to be a place of great wealth somewhere in the interior. The Spaniards didn't find El Dorado, but they did find Lake Guatavita and tried to drain it in 1545. They lowered its level enough to find hundreds of pieces of gold along the lake's edge. But the presumed fabulous treasure in the deeper water was beyond their reach. Ral ei gh' s Quest English courtier Sir Walter Raleigh made two trips to Guiana to search for El Dorado. During his second trip in 1617, he sent his son, Watt Raleigh, with an expedition up the Orinoco River. But Walter Raleigh, then an old man, stayed behind at a base camp on the island of Trinidad. The expedition was a disaster, and Watt Raleigh was killed in a battle with Spaniards. Eric Klingelhofer, an archaeologist at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia, says Walter Raleigh was furious at the survivor who informed him of Watt's death and accused the survivor of letting his son be killed. "The man goes into his cabin on the ship and kills himself," says Klingelhofer, who is trying to find the site of Raleigh's base camp on Trinidad. Raleigh returned to England, where King J ames ordered him beheaded for, among other things, disobeying orders to avoid conflict with the Spanish. The legend of El Dorado endures because "you want it to be true," says J ose Oliver, a lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology at University College London. "I don't think we've ever stopped seeking El Dorado." So where is this lost city of gold? In his 1849 poem "El Dorado," writer Edgar Allan Poe offers an eerie and eloquent suggestion: "Over the Mountains of the Moon, down the Valley of the Shadow, ride, boldly rideif you seek for El Dorado." Rel at ed Feat ur es Lost I nc a Gol d Steeped in death, conquest, desire, and mystery, the legend of the lost Inca gold is guarded by remote, mist-veiled mountains in central Ecuador. Seven Ci t i es of Ci bol a Spanish explorers who were scouring the New World for Native American treasure had heard persistent tales of the fantastic wealth of the so- called Seven Cities of Cibola. 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