El Dorado Questions

Recently we received an email from two students who were researching El Dorado for a Social Studies project. They wanted to know if we had any further information based on our article published on the Ancient Earth Mysteries website. El Dorado is a fun topic to explore because research leads to an important part of Central America and South American history, when the Spanish invaded.  Despite the benefits to the inquisition, the invasion was detrimental to the Aztecs, Inca, and Mayans. A great deal of knowledge and understanding of these cultures was lost to the destruction of Spanish Conquistadors.

Orellano and Pizarro

El Dorado itself is a difficult subject to find information on considering the very nature of how the legend originated, as part of the Spanish Inquisition and their conquest on the Inca Empire. Some researchers believe the legend of a Lost City of Gold might have been a tactic of the Inca (and Mayans) to distract Spanish invaders from destroying their cities. The conquistadors were in search of great wealth to bring back to Spain, as this was a major motive for exploring new worlds and funding future expeditions.

We do know by historical record the Inca and Mayans accumulated vast amounts of gold and theoretically not all of it was pillaged during Spanish invasions, and much was thrown to the bottom of a lake as offerings to the gods. This concept leads new age explorers to believe a large gold cache still resides somewhere, the Lost City of Gold, where the Inca hid their wealth to prevent the inquisition from stealing it. Many people have spent their entire lives searching for this legendary city in hopes to discover a treasure of a lifetime, but unfortunately these expeditions often end in frustration.