A city of untold wealth hidden deep in the heart of the Amazon rainforest, a Mexican king or a gilded man covered from head to toe with gold dust, heaven on earth and the location of the Holy Grail are all something beyond the reach of wealth seekers, life-seekers and dreamers. Eldorado has always been and remains a symbol of treasures. In the XVI century. Spanish conquistadors embarked on the most dangerous journeys, hoping to at least glance over the golden city with a passing glance. The British explorer Sir Walter Reilly in 1596 pointed out its exact location. Even researchers of the XXI century. hope to find El Dorado somewhere in the impenetrable jungles of Peru or at the bottom of a mysterious lake in Colombia. Are all these efforts in vain? Will it ever be possible to find Eldorado, or does the city exist only in the myths of the indigenous population of Colombia?
The legend of the golden man (in Spanish - El Dorado) was well known in Colombia and Peru, when at the beginning of the 16th century. the Spaniards arrived here. Some scholars believe that the legend is based on a ceremony held by an isolated Muisca tribe - a highly developed community that lived at an altitude of 8,200 feet - in the Andes and skillfully processed gold. The ceremony for the appointment of a new chief, or high priest, appears to have taken place on Lake Guatavita, north of present-day Bogotá. Starting the ritual, the new ruler presented gifts to the god of the lake, after which a raft was built from reeds and filled with incense and incense. The naked body of the new leader was smeared with embalming resin and covered with a thin layer of gold dust. Then the ruler with his four assistants, who carried golden crowns, pendants, earrings and other jewelry,sat on a raft, strewn with heaps of gold and emeralds, and to the accompaniment of trumpets and flutes, the raft pushed off the shore and sailed towards the center of the lake. As soon as he reached the middle, everything calmed down. The leader and his subordinates made a donation - they threw wealth into the water. From that moment on, the new ruler was considered a leader and overlord.
John Hemming in his book "In Search of Eldorado" writes that in the XVII century. among the tribes that lived along the banks of the Orinoco River in Venezuela, it was customary to lubricate the bodies with special oils, which, like clothes, served as protection from mosquitoes. On holiday days, they applied multi-colored designs on top of a layer of oil. Even now, the inhabitants of the Amazon use vegetable dyes. Tribes that had a lot of gold could use it to decorate bodies. Perhaps there is some truth in the legend of the golden man. But does the legend of El Dorado originate from here?
We find other facts at the origins of the legend. During the Conquest, there was a rumor among the Spaniards that a group of rebellious Inca warriors were able to slip out of the hands of the conquistadors and escape to the mountains of Venezuela. The rebels allegedly took with them a lot of gold and precious stones and founded a new empire. The captive Indians talked about a rich land located behind the mountains to the east of the city of Quito (now the capital of Ecuador), where people bathe in gold. In a letter to King Carlos V of Spain, the conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro mentioned the rich lands near Lake El Dorado, probably referring to the ceremony of the Muisca tribe and their golden man. Pizarro was one of those Spanish conquerors who dreamed of finding the legendary lost city. In the legend of El Dorado, in addition to gold, the Spaniards were interested in cinnamon, which was used by the Indians. In Europe, spices were highly prizedsince they were actively used to preserve food (freezing had not yet been invented), and their sale brought huge profits.
The conquistadors learned from the local population that the spices are grown by the tribes living east of Quito. In February 1541, an expedition of 220 Spanish adventurers and 4,000 Indian porters led by Gonzalo Pizarro and Lieutenant Francis de Orelano left Quito in search of cinnamon and the mysterious El Dorado. The fanatical search for values was often accompanied by barbaric torture. Pizarro tortured the Indians until they told him what he wanted to know about the hidden gold and cinnamon trees. The expedition moved along the rivers Coca and Napo. But food quickly ran out, and soon more than half of the Spaniards and 3,000 Indians died. In February 1542 the expedition was divided into two parts: Francisco de Orelano headed down Napo, and Pizarro decided to return to Quito by land. From Napo, Orelano went to the Amazon and swam down the river to the Atlantic Ocean, which was a real feat. But he never found Eldorado.
However, this did not stop the Spaniards. The coveted gold and spices attracted travelers. Most of the XVI century. passed in search of enormous wealth. The seekers believed that the treasures exist and are hidden in some unknown place - in the jungle or mountains of Ecuador or Colombia. In 1568, the wealthy explorer and conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada received an order from King Philip to search the southern Llanos, the vast tropical plains of Colombia with tall grass. In December 1569, an expedition of 300 Spaniards and 1,500 Indians left the capital of Colombia, Bogota, and set out in search of El Dorado. But the harsh conditions of the dull, mosquito-filled swamps and desert plains ruined the expedition: three years later, Quesada returned to Bogota with 64 Spaniards and 4 Indians.
Many researchers, relying on the myth of the Muisca ceremony on Lake Guatavita and the mention of Lake Eldorado by Gonzalo Pizarro, put forward the version that the lost city is indeed located near the lake. In 1595, Sir Walter Reilly, a British explorer at the court, in an attempt to regain the favor of Queen Elizabeth I, went in search of El Dorado. His expedition sailed along the Orinoco River for several weeks, but did not find anything. However, in his book Discovery of the Great, Rich and Beautiful Empire of Guyana, and Description of the Great Golden City of Manoa, Reilly stated that El Dorado is a city located on Lake Parime on the Orinoco River in Guyana (today Venezuela). To be more convincing, Reilly presented an accurate map of the lake city, and since then the mythical Lake Parime has been marked on the maps of South America for another 150 years. Only at the beginning of the 19th century. German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt established that neither the city nor the lake ever existed.
Unlike the mythical Lake Parime, the existence of Lake Guatavita has never been questioned. Maybe this is where the mysterious Eldorado is located? As soon as the Spanish conquerors learned about the Muisca tribe, which, as a sacrifice, drops jewelry into Lake Guatavita, they began to explore the lake. The wealthy merchant Antonio de Sepúlveda actually managed to find several gold discs and emeralds in the mud at the edge of the lake. The whole “catch” was only “232 pesos and 10 grams of high quality gold”. In 1823, a noble resident of Bogotá Don Pepe Peris made another attempt to explore the lake, but he also returned without gold finds. Later, in the early to mid-20th century, projects aimed at exploring the bottom of the lake revealed several interesting objects, but nothing like heaps of gold.which were supposedly dumped into the sacred lake, were never found. Finally, in 1965, the Colombian government thwarted the search that caused a noticeable disturbance to the lake's topography, placing Guatavita under state protection.
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In 1969, two farmers working in a cove near the village of Pasca (near Bogotá) found an elaborate, solid gold model of a 10.5-inch raft. It contained the figure of the king, towering over 10 officials in fancy headdresses. Many took this find as evidence of a Muisca stay at Lake Guatavita. Almost the same raft was found in 1856 during the survey of Lake Siecha (south of the village of Guatavita). This golden raft soon ended up in the hands of a certain Solomon Kop sang, who sold it to the Berlin Imperial Museum, but after the First World War the raft disappeared. The rafts found confirm the existence of a ceremony on the lake, although it should be noted that the Muisca culture revered not only water, but also mountains, stars, planets, as well as the cult of ancestors. Moreover, the tribes never produced gold themselves,and received it as a result of trade with other tribes. Consequently, the items of gold were small and very delicate, such as the surviving golden raft. It is unlikely that the Muisca would have enough gold to "gild" their leaders and repeatedly throw jewelry into the lake during the ceremony, as the myth says.
However, even today, the dream of El Dorado excites the minds of adventurers. In 2000, the American researcher Jean Savvoy reported that he had discovered the lost city of pre-Columbian America, Cajamarquilla, in the more pristine rainforests of eastern Peru. Some members of his team suggested that the local temples and burials may be the ruins of the legendary Eldorado. In 2002, a Polish-Italian journalist and explorer named Jacek Palkiewicz reported that his expedition had located Eldorado on a plateau near a lake near Manu National Park, southeast of the Peruvian capital Lima. In both the first and second cases, research continues.
Although the search has been going on for more than 450 years, since the Spanish expeditions of the mid-16th century, the alluring riches of Eldorado have not come closer. Eldorado has become a metaphor for the purposeful search for wealth, which is always somewhere nearby and always inaccessible. There is no doubt: in the vast expanses of the Amazon rainforest, enthusiasts will find many more prehistoric cities, but El Dorado, the golden man or the golden city exist only in the imagination of people eager to find quick ways to get rich.
B. Houghton. "Great secrets and mysteries of history"