SOURCE: Ainsa, Fernando. “The Myth, Marvel, and Adventure of El Dorado: Semantic Mutations of a Legend.” Diogenes 41, No. 4 (1993): 13-26.

In the following essay, Ainsa traces the evolution of the myth of El Dorado from the story of a gilded king, to a belief in a treasure lying at the bottom of a lake, to the legend of a golden land.

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...