Lake Guatavita and El Dorado
The legend of El Dorado, a city of gold, began with a real ceremony on a round lake in the Colombian Andes.
What was reported
The Muisca people of the Colombian highlands held a ceremony when a new ruler took power. According to Spanish accounts, he was covered in gold dust and rafted out onto the round Lake Guatavita, where gold and emeralds were offered to the water.
Europeans turned the story of 'el dorado', the golden one, into a legend of a lost city of gold. Expeditions searched South America for it for centuries, and several attempts were made to drain Lake Guatavita to recover its treasure.
Explanations offered
There was no city of gold. The ceremony was real, and a famous golden model of a raft with figures, found in a cave in 1969 and now in Bogotá's Gold Museum, appears to show it. Draining attempts recovered some gold objects, but the lake is now protected.
- When
- Ceremony from before the 1500s
- Where
- Guatavita, Cundinamarca, Colombia
- Witnesses
- Spanish chroniclers and Muisca tradition
- Status
- Mostly explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.