El Dorado (Venezuela)
El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden") is commonly associated with the legend of a gold city, kingdom, or empire purportedly located somewhere in the Americas. Originally, ''El Hombre Dorado'' ("The Golden Man") or ''El Rey Dorado'' ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish in the 16th century to describe a mythical tribal chief (''zipa'') or king of the Muisca people, an indigenous people of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia, who as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. A second location for El Dorado was inferred from rumors, which inspired several unsuccessful expeditions in the late 1500s in search of a city called Manoa on the shores of Lake Parime or Parima. Two of the most famous of these expeditions were led by Sir Walter Raleigh. In pursuit of the legend, Spanish ''conquistadores'' and numerous others searched what is today Colombia, Venezuela, and parts of Guyana and northern Brazil, for the city and it ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gold Museum, Bogota (36145671394)
Gold is a chemical element with the Symbol (chemistry), symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a Brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal in a pure form. Chemically, gold is a transition metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under Standard conditions for temperature and pressure, standard conditions. Gold often occurs in Free element, free elemental (native state (metallurgy), native state), as Gold nugget, nuggets or grains, in Rock (geology), rocks, Vein (geology), veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Seven Cities Of Gold
The myth of the Seven Cities of Gold, also known as the Seven Cities of Cibola (), was popular in the 16th century and later featured in several works of popular culture. According to legend, the seven cities of gold referred to Aztec mythology revolving around the Pueblos of the Spanish Nuevo México, today's New Mexico and Southwestern United States. Besides "Cibola", names associated with similar lost cities of gold also included El Dorado, Paititi, City of the Caesars, Lake Parime at Manoa, Antilia, and Quivira. Origins of myth/legend In the 16th century, the Spaniards in New Spain (now Mexico) began to hear rumors of "Seven Cities of Gold" called "CÃbola" located across the desert, hundreds of miles to the north. The stories may have their root in an earlier Portuguese legend about seven cities founded on the island of Antillia by a Catholic expedition in the 8th century, or one based on the capture of Mérida, Spain by the Moors in 1150. The later Spanish tales were la ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Nencatacoa
Nencatacoa or Nem-catacoa was the god and protector of the mantle makers, artists and festivities in the religion of the Muisca. The Muisca and their confederation were one of the advanced civilizations of the Americas; as much as the Aztec, Mayas and Incas but other than the other three, they did not construct grand architecture. Their gold working however was well-known and respected which made Nencatacoa an important deity and protector. Description Nencatacoa was represented in the form of a forest animal, made of gold and covered with a mantle. Nencatacoa looked most like a fox or a bear,Description Nencatacoa – Pueblos Originarios because as noted, "an animal in that shape would ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bochica
Bochica (also alluded to as Nemquetaha, Nemqueteba and Sadigua) is a figure in the religion of the Muisca, who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense during the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors in the central Andean highlands of present-day Colombia. He was the founding hero of their civilization, who according to legend brought morals and laws to the people and taught them agriculture and other crafts. Description Similarly to the Incan god Viracocha, the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl and several other deities from Central and South American pantheons, Bochica is described in legends as being bearded. The beard, once mistaken as a mark of a prehistoric European influence and quickly fueled and embellished by spirits of the colonial era, had its single significance in the continentally insular culture of Mesoamerica. The ''Anales de Cuauhtitlan'' is a very important early source which is particularly valuable for having been originally written in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztec. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chibchacum
Chibchacum is the rain and thunder god in the religion of the Muisca who inhabited the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in pre-Columbian times. Description In myth, when Chibchacum was angry, he sent heavy rains to the flatlands, causing the rivers to flood, destroying the agriculture and the houses (''bohÃos'') of the Muisca. When the rains were over and the Sun was shining again, causing Cuchavira to appear, the people offered low-grade gold or gold-copper alloys (tumbaga), marine snails and small emeralds to thank him. One tale tells how the Muisca venerated a rock and worshipped Bochica. Chibchacum was very angry and rebelled against Bochica. He went down to Earth and noticed a woman, Chié coming to get some water. Chibchacum wooed her into joining his rebellion, promising that Chié would be his queen once Bochica was finished. Chié joined, and soon everybody was fighting, believing that they were better than others and lying. This caused a civil war. Chié was cursed by Bochi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bachué
The goddess Bachué (in Chibcha language: "the one with the naked breast"), is a mother goddess that according to the Muisca religion is the mother of humanity. She emerged of the waters in the Iguaque Lake with a baby in her arms, who grew to become her husband and populated the Earth. She received worshipping in a temple, in the area now within the municipality of ChÃquiza, formerly called "San Pedro de Iguaque". The legend tells that after she accomplished the goal of giving birth to humanity, Bachué and the parrot god, her husband, became snakes and returned to the sacred lagoon. The history of Bachué was mentioned by the Spanish chronicler, Pedro Simón in his book ''Noticias Historiales'' where he wrote that the indigenous people also called her "Furachogua" (Chibcha for: "the good woman"), and worshipped her as one of their main deities. Simón also mentions that the Muisca believed that Bachué sometimes came back from the underworld to guide her people. See also ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chiminigagua
Chiminigagua, Chiminichagua or Chimichagua was the supreme being, omnipotent god and creator of the world in the religion of the Muisca.Ocampo López, 2013, Ch.1, p.15 The Muisca and their confederation were one of the four advanced civilizations of the Americas and developed their own religion on the Altiplano Cundiboyacense in the Andes. Description Chiminigagua was a universally good god and represented the only light that existed when it was night time. When the world was created there was only darkness and the only light was given by Chiminigagua. When Chiminigagua decided to shine light across the Universe, he first opened his gigantic belly from where light was shining. He then created two large black birds and launched them into space. The birds spread light from their beaks which produced light in the cosmos. Thus he created light and everything in the world. Chiminigagua showed the importance of his important gods ChÃa (the Moon), Sué (the Sun) and Cuchavira (rainb ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muisca Mythology
Knowledge of Muisca mythology has come from Muisca scholars Javier Ocampo López, Pedro Simón, Lucas Fernández de Piedrahita, Juan de Castellanos and conquistador Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada who was the European making first contact with the Muisca in the 1530s. Muisca mythology The times before the Spanish conquest of the Muisca Confederation are filled with mythology. The first confirmed human rulers of the two capitals Hunza and Bacatá are said to have descended from mythical creatures. Apart from that other Muisca myths exist, such as the legendary ''El Dorado'' and the Monster of Lake Tota. Mythological creatures Several mythological creatures have been described by the chroniclers: * Thomagata, said to have been one of the most religious of the ''zaques'', after Idacansás * Idacansás, allegedly a mythical priest from Sugamuxi who was able to change the order of things * Goranchacha, a mythical ''cacique'' who moved the capital of the northern Muisca from Ramiriquà ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Inca Empire
The Inca Empire (also known as the Incan Empire and the Inka Empire), called ''Tawantinsuyu'' by its subjects, (Quechua for the "Realm of the Four Parts", "four parts together" ) was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The Inca civilization arose from the Peruvian highlands sometime in the early 13th century. The Spanish began the conquest of the Inca Empire in 1532 and by 1572, the last Inca state was fully conquered. From 1438 to 1533, the Incas incorporated a large portion of western South America, centered on the Andean Mountains, using conquest and peaceful assimilation, among other methods. At its largest, the empire joined modern-day Peru, what are now western Ecuador, western and south central Bolivia, northwest Argentina, the southwesternmost tip of Colombia and a large portion of modern-day Chile, and into a state comparable to the historical empires of Eurasia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Maya Civilization
The Maya civilization () of the Mesoamerican people is known by its ancient temples and glyphs. Its Maya script is the most sophisticated and highly developed writing system in the pre-Columbian Americas. It is also noted for its art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system. The Maya civilization developed in the Maya Region, an area that today comprises southeastern Mexico, all of Guatemala and Belize, and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador. It includes the northern lowlands of the Yucatán Peninsula and the highlands of the Sierra Madre, the Mexican state of Chiapas, southern Guatemala, El Salvador, and the southern lowlands of the Pacific littoral plain. Today, their descendants, known collectively as the Maya, number well over 6 million individuals, speak more than twenty-eight surviving Mayan languages, and reside in nearly the same area as their ancestors. The Archaic period, before 2000 BC, saw the first developments in agricul ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Aztec
The Aztecs () were a Mesoamerican culture that flourished in central Mexico in the post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl, Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to the 16th centuries. Aztec culture was organized into city-states (''altepetl''), some of which joined to form alliances, political confederations, or empires. The Aztec Empire was a confederation of three city-states established in 1427: Tenochtitlan, city-state of the Mexica or Tenochca; Texcoco (altepetl), Texcoco; and Tlacopan, previously part of the Tepanec empire, whose dominant power was Azcapotzalco (altepetl), Azcapotzalco. Although the term Aztecs is often narrowly restricted to the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, it is also broadly used to refer to Nahuas, Nahua polities or peoples of central Pre-Columbian Mexico, Mexico in the preh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Muisca Confederation
The Muisca Confederation was a loose confederation of different Muisca rulers (''zaques'', ''zipas'', '' iraca'', and ''tundama'') in the central Andean highlands of present-day Colombia before the Spanish conquest of northern South America. The area, presently called Altiplano Cundiboyacense, comprised the current departments of Boyacá, Cundinamarca and minor parts of Santander. According to some Muisca scholars the Muisca Confederation was one of the best-organized confederations of tribes on the South American continent. Modern anthropologists, such as Jorge Gamboa Mendoza, attribute the present-day knowledge about the confederation and its organization more to a reflection by Spanish chroniclers who predominantly wrote about it a century or more after the Muisca were conquered and proposed the idea of a loose collection of different people with slightly different languages and backgrounds.Gamboa Mendoza, 2016 Geography Climate Muisca Confederation In the time ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |