Golden bell

Golden brooches

Mummy

Golden mask

CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- For more than three hundred years, hundreds of expeditions have come to the South American Jungle with a crazy “golden dream”. But there was more going in and less coming out. Their destination was a country made of gold — “Golden Kingdom”.

At present, the exquisite gold products of this mysterious country came to Chongqing.

Recently, the special exhibition "The Loss of El Dorado - Andes Civilization" (失落的黄金国-安第斯文明) was held in Chongqing China Three Gorges Museum, which will last for nearly three months.

A two-kilogram golden mask, a mummy holding a head... Selected from 11 archaeological museums in Peru, 157 cultural relics spanning about 3,000 years will tell the story of the mysterious “Golden Kingdom” to the audience in all aspects.

The birth of largest empire in America in 15th century

In the northeast of Bogota, the capital of Colombia, there is a plateau lake called Guatavita Lake, which was the place that European explorers in the 16th century yearned for. It is said that the king of the Golden Kingdom of Eldorado, as the Spanish called it, made gold sacred objects and held sacrificial ceremonies here.

In the two thousand years before the arrival of the expedition invaders, the aborigines here had gradually mastered the exquisite metallurgical technology, with an outstanding aesthetic, and could make gold into exquisite objects. Gold was regarded as a sacred thing condensing solar energy.

In search of the legendary “Golden Kingdom”, Spaniards set foot on the land of South America in the early 16th century to compete for gold for wealth. This “Golden Kingdom” was the “Andean Civilization” that was familiar and unfamiliar to Chinese.

Many ancient cultures have been bred on this land, and the glory of the land was extinct one after another until the rise of the Inca Empire in the 15th century. As the largest ancient empire in the America at that time, it had made brilliant achievements in the fields of agriculture, handicrafts, architecture, religion and art, but it quickly went to destruction after the invasion.

Due to the lack of written records, with the demise of the Inca Empire, the ancient Andean civilization also solidified into a riddle.

Peak of ancient South American gold skills

Although there are many gold products from the "Golden Kingdom" in the exhibition hall, the Sican Royal headdress that comes out of Peru completely for the first time will still take all your attention without any accident.

This two-kilogram golden headdress represented the peak of gold craftsmanship in pre-Spanish times. It was one of the largest and most exquisite metal ornaments handed down from ancient Peru, showing the peak of gold craftsmanship in ancient South America.

The two kilogram headdress is more than one meter high and 60 centimeters wide with its attached real bird feathers. Through it, people can have a glimpse of the grand scene of Sican Royal headdress and various gold ornaments, sitting on the chariot.

The headdress has rotating eyes, each made of beads perforated with amber and turquoise. The long tongue that protruded between two pairs of fangs can also be moved from one side to the other.

Mummy with ring

A total of two well-preserved adult male mummies came to Chongqing this time. They were unearthed in a cave in northwest Peru wrapped with cotton cloth by natural drying. One of the men artificially enlarged the earlobe, most likely wearing large earrings. The ring worn on the middle finger of his right hand indicates his high status.

The origin of the Inca mummies is still a mystery, and most adult mummies are highly respected people. (Translated by Luo Juan, Fathom Language Limited)