Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-k7p5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-13T12:41:12.144Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Myth, Marvel, and Adventure of El Dorado Semantic Mutations of a Legend

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Fernando Ainsa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Dreams of gold have accompanied human history down through the ages. Gold is a beautiful and useful metal, easily shaped and immune to rust, and from the time of the ancient Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations, it has been regarded as a precious metal from which jewels and decorative as well as everyday objects have been fashioned. Even before the concept of money turned it into one of the principal forms of exchange, gold was used as a medium of barter.

Apart from being of commercial and aesthetic value, gold is also a part of the stuff of fables and legends. Legendary and mythical lands where gold abounds have crowded the imaginative geography of almost all civilizations. The Bible itself, in the Book of Kings, speaks of the Mines of King Solomon, the Kingdom of Ophir, and the City of Sidon, while the prophet Zechariah observes that in the City of Tyre: “silver is heaped up like dust, and gold as the mire of the streets.” [Zachariah, 9.3]

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 41 , Issue 164 , December 1993 , pp. 13 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © 1993 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arciniegas, Germán, El caballero de El Dorado, Madrid, Revista de Occidente 1969. Cobo Borda, Juan Gustavo, Fabulas y leyendas de El Dorado, Anthologie de textes, Barcelone, Biblioteca del Nuevo Mundo, Tusquets 1987.Google Scholar
Cristóbal, Cólon, Textos y documentos completos, Consuelo VARELA (éd.). Madrid, Alianza 1982.Google Scholar
Chapman, Walter, Le Rêve doré. Les Conquistadores, Paris, Albin Michel 1970.Google Scholar
Gerbi, Antonello, La Naturaleza de las Indias Nuevas, Mexico, Fondo de Cultura Económica 1978.Google Scholar
Naipaul, V.S., The Loss of El Dorado, London, Penguin Books 1987.Google Scholar
Raleigh, Sir Walter, El Dorado, Paris UTZ/UNESCO 1993.Google Scholar
Ramos, Demetrio, El Mito de El Dorado, Madrid, Istmo 1988.Google Scholar
Váquez, Francisco, Jornada de Omagua y El Dorado, crónica de Lope de Aguirre, Madrid, Espasa Calpe 1983.Google Scholar