Beyond El Dorado

Exhibition at the British Museum

Until 24 March, 2014

Reviews
November 14, 2013
by Ronan McFadden
Beyond El Dorado - Power and Gold in Ancient Colombia, London - Funerary mask, Calima Malagana, gold alloy, 100BC-AD400. Copyright Museo del Oro, Banco de la Republica, Colombia

The British Museum’s dazzling new exhibition of artefacts from pre-Hispanic Colombia ‘Beyond El Dorado’ illuminates the important status of gold as a material for craft and art in ancient Andean spiritual life.

The show exposes the yawning gap between the European idea of gold as currency and the ancient Colombian concept of gold as a sacred material, resembling the sun and therefore capable of bringing people closer to the spiritual world. Pre-Columbian societies such as the Muisca, Quimbaya, Calima and Tairona developed sophisticated methods of manipulating gold long before the first Europeans arrived in the region. The archaic communities crafted body ornaments, decorations, musical instruments and votive figurines for ritualistic and ceremonial use. Then the West arrived, and became obsessed with finding the mythical lost city of El Dorado to plunder for its valuable gold.

Along with body painting, music and ritual coca chewing, wearing gold was an important symbol of power in ancient Columbian societies, conferring social and spiritual status on community leaders. Gold body ornaments made to resemble birds, bats, monkeys or snakes, were thought to be magically transformative, empowering the wearer with the sacred qualities of the respective animal. The idea of gold as a physical embodiment of the supernatural was fundamental to the spiritual rites of these cultures, and this exhibition brings us closer to seeing the material in this quasi-mystical way. Sublime exhibits such as the delicate Muisca body decorations, with wafer-thin gold dangles, or the elaborate Caliman nose ornament seem to radiate light like tangible pieces of the sun. The tiny votive tunjo figurines from Lake Guatavita, depicting stylised human figures, are exquisite, with an artistic and spiritual value far exceeding their weight in gold.

Beyond Eldorado is a rich and fascinating show, uniting the British Museum’s own collection of artefacts from the region with hundreds of objects from the Bogotá Museu del Oro (‘Museum of Gold’) and featuring many extraordinary pieces never before seen in the UK.