El Dorado: The glorious, gilded truth
A stunning exhibition of ancient Colombian gold at the British Museum reveals the inspiration for one of the world's most enduring myths
"Get gold. Humanely if you can, but at all hazards, get gold.” So urged
Spain’s King Ferdinand of his expeditionists to the New World in the
early-16th century.
Tales abounded of a gilded
paradise, where the streets were paved with gold and the temples
built with it, and avaricious adventurers from all Europe were soon setting
out to South America in search – from Spain’s Lope de Aguirre (immortalised
in a 1972
film by Werner Herzog) to Germany’s Philipp von Hutten and our very
own Walter Raleigh. Gold fever was rife, and the myth of El Dorado rampant.
No such paradise has ever been found, though. Indeed, it’s safe to say it
never existed. It only came to life in the imagination of Europeans,
thrilled by the notion – and prospective wealth – of a distant city of gold.
The adventurers sought to step through the frame into a picture they
themselves had created.
But, as a new British Museum exhibition, 'Beyond El Dorado: Power and Gold in
Ancient Colombia', reveals, the myth was rooted in elements of truth.
Specifically, a ritual that took place at the sacred lake of Guatavita,
formed in a volcanic crater high in the Andes (35 miles north east of
modern-day Bogota).
Marking the accession of a new tribal chief, it was carried out by the Muisca
people – one of 30 indigenous groups that inhabited the land we now call
Colombia, when the Spaniards first landed in 1499. Various Spanish
chroniclers describe the ritual, but the most complete account is by Juan
Rodríguez Freyle, in his book 'The Conquest and Discovery of the New Kingdom
of Granada'.
Thousands gathered from afar, all seeking a vantage point of their “new ruler, [whose] first journey was to the great lagoon of Guatavita to make offerings to their god… They made a raft of rushes [and] stripped the heir to his skin, anointing him with a sticky earth, on which they placed gold dust, so he was covered with this metal head-to-toe. They placed him on the raft, and at his feet placed a huge heap of gold. With him went four subject priests, decked in crowns, bracelets, pendants and ear rings – all of gold… And when the raft reached the centre of the lagoon, the gilded Indian threw out his whole heap to the bottom”, before returning to the shore to the sound of pipes, flutes, much singing and dancing.
Sacred: Lake Guatavita in the Andes, from where the myth of El Dorado sprang
El Dorado is Spanish for “the golden one”, and the name owes its origin to the Muisca leader. It’s only over time, as legends accreted, that it came to apply to a mythical place. In fact, the ceremony at Guatavita was but the most famous of many rituals involving gold across ancient Colombia; and the Muisca were but one of many ethnic groups whose millennia of gold-making (as far back as 500 BC) are being celebrated at the British Museum.
Body adornments such as diadems, nose-rings and pectorals will appear alongside votive offerings and funerary masks. However, it’s perhaps with so-called poporos – created by the Quimbaya people of west Colombia, using the lost-wax technique – that goldsmithery reached its peak. These were containers for the lime powder with which locals habitually chewed coca leaves: sculpted in figurative shapes of such detail they’re among the most technically stunning pieces of metalwork in all the Americas.
Alas, our knowledge of the ancient Colombian peoples is limited by the fact they had no written language (artists and patrons alike remain anonymous). What is clear, though, is that, unlike the conquistadores, they placed no monetary worth on their gold. For indigenous groups, the yellow, iridescent, non-corrosive metal had only symbolic value, associated with the colour, brilliance and constancy of the sun.
According to Maria Alicia Uribe, director of Bogota’s Museo del Oro (which is lending the majority of the show’s 300 objects), “in countries like Peru and Mexico, they have monumental architecture as sources of pre-Hispanic pride. In Colombia, we have gold work.”
The metal was sourced by panning rich alluvial deposits on river beds. It’s estimated that up until the 19th-century gold rushes (in California, South Africa and beyond), 40 per cent of the world’s gold came from Colombia. And unlike in many societies, where rarity made gold a preserve of the elite, its use seems to have been much more widespread. As the Spanish priest, Friar Pedro Simón, observed: “No Indian woman was without four or six gold jewels around her neck.”
The exhibition will highlight the sheer variety of metalwork across the land. In contrast to the naturalistic Quimbaya, for instance, the Tolima people of central Colombia preferred highly stylised pieces; abstract works from elsewhere recall Brancusi, while the Calima smiths of the west were masters of the repoussé technique of hammering.
Gold also rarely appeared pure; most often it was mixed with copper and silver to create alloys known as tumbaga – goldsmiths blending each metal according to how much of a reddish or silvery tinge they wanted.
The fact that so many objects survive is, to a large extent, the product of good fortune. The Spanish took to melting down the vast quantity of gold they found and shipping it all back to Europe. In the case of representational pieces, this was done under a Catholic pretext of destroying pagan idols – but bankrolling a monarchy and empire was, of course, the truer motive.
Thankfully, the ancient Colombians returned much of their gold to the earth. To wit, many objects were buried with the deceased, or buried in lakes and caves as part of rituals (like at Guatavita). Thus, they remained out of foreign hands and resurfaced only in recent times.
Heady stuff: A ceremonial gold helmet from the Quimbaya region, c.50 AD
Football lovers – specifically those who recall Colombia’s “Bird Man” supporter at World Cups past – may find the exhibition of interest, too. We learn his inspiration for suspending himself mid-air from the stands, with colourful headdress and wings. In pre-Hispanic times, in a bid to ensure his community’s well-being, a shaman would ingest hallucinogenic substances to achieve spiritual union with birds, jaguars, crocodiles and other creatures around him.
The idea was to put himself, and his people, at one with the cosmos. To assist the ritual, the shaman was adorned with body-paint and costume to take on the appearance of a given animal, as well as with gold objects that reflected his change. The Tolima breastplates coming to the BM – depicting birdmen and batmen – are among the most celebrated works of all Colombian gold.
Spanish practice inevitably had a deleterious effect on local goldmaking, though it still survives in isolated centres today (such as the Unesco World Heritage town of Mompox, famed for its filigree jewellery). The tale has taken another unedifying twist in recent years – certain to go unmentioned in the exhibition – as guerrilla groups and demobbed paramilitaries turn to illegal gold mining, in response to soaring prices for the commodity worldwide and government crackdowns on their erstwhile production of cocaine.
To consider this exhibition through too 21st-century a lens, though, is not just misguided but ungracious. It’s about a reality of ancient artistry every bit as fantastic as the myth of El Dorado it inspired.
With its latest exhibition, the British Museum can be truly said to have struck gold.
'Beyond El Dorado: Power and Gold in Ancient Colombia', sponsored by Julius Baer with additional support by American Airlines, is at the British Museum, Oct 17 to Mar 23
Thousands gathered from afar, all seeking a vantage point of their “new ruler, [whose] first journey was to the great lagoon of Guatavita to make offerings to their god… They made a raft of rushes [and] stripped the heir to his skin, anointing him with a sticky earth, on which they placed gold dust, so he was covered with this metal head-to-toe. They placed him on the raft, and at his feet placed a huge heap of gold. With him went four subject priests, decked in crowns, bracelets, pendants and ear rings – all of gold… And when the raft reached the centre of the lagoon, the gilded Indian threw out his whole heap to the bottom”, before returning to the shore to the sound of pipes, flutes, much singing and dancing.
Sacred: Lake Guatavita in the Andes, from where the myth of El Dorado sprang
El Dorado is Spanish for “the golden one”, and the name owes its origin to the Muisca leader. It’s only over time, as legends accreted, that it came to apply to a mythical place. In fact, the ceremony at Guatavita was but the most famous of many rituals involving gold across ancient Colombia; and the Muisca were but one of many ethnic groups whose millennia of gold-making (as far back as 500 BC) are being celebrated at the British Museum.
Body adornments such as diadems, nose-rings and pectorals will appear alongside votive offerings and funerary masks. However, it’s perhaps with so-called poporos – created by the Quimbaya people of west Colombia, using the lost-wax technique – that goldsmithery reached its peak. These were containers for the lime powder with which locals habitually chewed coca leaves: sculpted in figurative shapes of such detail they’re among the most technically stunning pieces of metalwork in all the Americas.
Alas, our knowledge of the ancient Colombian peoples is limited by the fact they had no written language (artists and patrons alike remain anonymous). What is clear, though, is that, unlike the conquistadores, they placed no monetary worth on their gold. For indigenous groups, the yellow, iridescent, non-corrosive metal had only symbolic value, associated with the colour, brilliance and constancy of the sun.
According to Maria Alicia Uribe, director of Bogota’s Museo del Oro (which is lending the majority of the show’s 300 objects), “in countries like Peru and Mexico, they have monumental architecture as sources of pre-Hispanic pride. In Colombia, we have gold work.”
The metal was sourced by panning rich alluvial deposits on river beds. It’s estimated that up until the 19th-century gold rushes (in California, South Africa and beyond), 40 per cent of the world’s gold came from Colombia. And unlike in many societies, where rarity made gold a preserve of the elite, its use seems to have been much more widespread. As the Spanish priest, Friar Pedro Simón, observed: “No Indian woman was without four or six gold jewels around her neck.”
The exhibition will highlight the sheer variety of metalwork across the land. In contrast to the naturalistic Quimbaya, for instance, the Tolima people of central Colombia preferred highly stylised pieces; abstract works from elsewhere recall Brancusi, while the Calima smiths of the west were masters of the repoussé technique of hammering.
Gold also rarely appeared pure; most often it was mixed with copper and silver to create alloys known as tumbaga – goldsmiths blending each metal according to how much of a reddish or silvery tinge they wanted.
The fact that so many objects survive is, to a large extent, the product of good fortune. The Spanish took to melting down the vast quantity of gold they found and shipping it all back to Europe. In the case of representational pieces, this was done under a Catholic pretext of destroying pagan idols – but bankrolling a monarchy and empire was, of course, the truer motive.
Thankfully, the ancient Colombians returned much of their gold to the earth. To wit, many objects were buried with the deceased, or buried in lakes and caves as part of rituals (like at Guatavita). Thus, they remained out of foreign hands and resurfaced only in recent times.
Heady stuff: A ceremonial gold helmet from the Quimbaya region, c.50 AD
Football lovers – specifically those who recall Colombia’s “Bird Man” supporter at World Cups past – may find the exhibition of interest, too. We learn his inspiration for suspending himself mid-air from the stands, with colourful headdress and wings. In pre-Hispanic times, in a bid to ensure his community’s well-being, a shaman would ingest hallucinogenic substances to achieve spiritual union with birds, jaguars, crocodiles and other creatures around him.
The idea was to put himself, and his people, at one with the cosmos. To assist the ritual, the shaman was adorned with body-paint and costume to take on the appearance of a given animal, as well as with gold objects that reflected his change. The Tolima breastplates coming to the BM – depicting birdmen and batmen – are among the most celebrated works of all Colombian gold.
Spanish practice inevitably had a deleterious effect on local goldmaking, though it still survives in isolated centres today (such as the Unesco World Heritage town of Mompox, famed for its filigree jewellery). The tale has taken another unedifying twist in recent years – certain to go unmentioned in the exhibition – as guerrilla groups and demobbed paramilitaries turn to illegal gold mining, in response to soaring prices for the commodity worldwide and government crackdowns on their erstwhile production of cocaine.
To consider this exhibition through too 21st-century a lens, though, is not just misguided but ungracious. It’s about a reality of ancient artistry every bit as fantastic as the myth of El Dorado it inspired.
With its latest exhibition, the British Museum can be truly said to have struck gold.
'Beyond El Dorado: Power and Gold in Ancient Colombia', sponsored by Julius Baer with additional support by American Airlines, is at the British Museum, Oct 17 to Mar 23
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