What Abundance Built · Episode 4 of 8 · 40 min
El Dorado Was Real: The Muisca Raft and the Gold They Threw Into a Lake
In the highlands of Colombia, two vanished worlds turned surplus into cosmology. The carvers of San Agustín left hundreds of megalithic statues, and the Muisca worked gold and made the famous raft that pictures the El Dorado ceremony, a gilded chief casting offerings into Lake Guatavita. Gold served as prayer thrown into sacred water, and as plunder for treasure hunters.
Who's who
- Gonzalo Jiménez de QuesadaSpanish conquistador who reached the Muisca highlands in 1536-38
- Hernán Pérez de QuesadaTried to drain Lake Guatavita in 1545
- Antonio de SepúlvedaDrove a larger drainage trench around 1580
- Alexander von Humboldt+1 more episodeVisited Guatavita in 1799 and estimated its treasure
Where it happens
- Lake Guatavita, Colombia+1 more episodeSacred lake at the heart of the El Dorado ceremony
- San Agustín, ColombiaUpper Magdalena site of more than six hundred megalithic statues
- Bogotá, Colombia+1 more episodeMuisca highlands and home of the Museo del Oro
- Pasca, ColombiaCave where farmers found the Muisca Raft in 1969
Timeline
- 1st-9th centuriesGreat age of monumental carving at San Agustín
- c. 1295-1410Probable casting window for the Muisca Raft
- 1536-1538Jiménez de Quesada's expedition reaches the Muisca; Bogotá founded
- 1545First attempt to drain Lake Guatavita
- 1939Banco de la República founds the Museo del Oro
- 1969Farmers find the Muisca Raft in a cave near Pasca
Still debated
The El Dorado ceremony is known only through Spanish chroniclers writing after contact, so how often it happened is uncertain. San Agustín's monumental tradition ended centuries before the Spanish, though people kept living there, and its statue count varies by what is counted.
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