Webster Dictionary 0. Freebase 2. Chambers 20th Century Dictionary 0. Matched Categories Imaginary Place. How to pronounce el dorado? Alex US English. David US English. Mark US English. Daniel British. Libby British. Mia British. Karen Australian.
Hayley Australian. Natasha Australian. The Spaniards called the city ruled by this flamboyant monarch El Dorado, Spanish for "gilded one," and the story of the gold-covered king eventually grew into a legend of a whole country paved with gold. These days, El Dorado can also used generically for any place of vast riches, abundance, or opportunity. It is also the name of actual cities in Arkansas and Kansas. See more words from the same year. Accessed 14 Nov. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!
Log in Sign Up. El Dorado noun. Rutledge Miriam Coles Harris. El Dorado. Also: eldorado any place of great riches or fabulous opportunity. All rights reserved. Quesada and his men were lured ever deeper into alien and inhospitable territories where many lost their lives. But what Quesada and his men found astounded them, as the goldworking of the Muisca was like nothing they had ever seen before. The exquisitely crafted gold objects used techniques beyond anything ever seen by European eyes.
Tragically, the desperate hunt for gold is still very much alive. Archaeologists, working at fantastic research institutions like the Museo del Oro in Bogota, are fighting against a rising tide of looting. So just like the European conquistadors of the 16th Century their modern counterparts continue to ravage South America's past and rob us of the fascinating stories behind it.
The quantities of gold uncovered by these looters is still astounding. In the s when new sites were discovered by looters in northern Colombia it caused the world gold market to crash. This El Dorado-inspired looting of gold has meant that the vast majority of precious pre-Columbian gold objects have been melted down and the real value of these artefacts as clues to the workings of an ancient culture have been lost forever.
Fortunately, surviving collections of objects curated at the Museo del Oro in Bogota and British Museum in London can provide an insight into these different perspectives on material value and human perception and most importantly tell the true story behind the myths of El Dorado.
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