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20 Dollars - Elizabeth II El Dorado
| Issuer | Cook Islands |
|---|---|
| Year | 2022 |
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| Composition | Log in to see details |
| Weight | 93.3 g |
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| Obverse description | Log in to see details |
|---|---|
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| Reverse description | The reverse features an elaborate high-relief panoramic scene depicting the legendary lost city of El Dorado, rendered with extraordinary sculptural depth in antiqued silver with selective gold-tone highlights. At the centre rises a monumental stepped Mesoamerican temple with a grand central staircase, flanked by cascading waterfalls and rugged mountain peaks in the background. Surrounding stone structures and terraced architecture fill the left and right fields, evoking the grandeur of a hidden jungle civilisation. In the lower right, a large, powerfully modelled indigenous ruler's face in gold tone dominates the foreground, wearing an ornate headdress, while a lone figure paddles a canoe across a reflective river in the middle ground. The selective gold gilding applied to the temple and the ruler's effigy creates a striking visual contrast against the antiqued silver field, reinforcing the mythological wealth associated with El Dorado. |
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| Edge | Reeded |
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| Additional information |
El Dorado — the mythologized city of gold pursued by Spanish conquistadors across the Orinoco basin throughout the 16th century — was never found, because it almost certainly never existed as a city. The legend originated with a Muisca ritual on Lake Guatavita in present-day Colombia, where a newly crowned chief was coated in gold dust and cast offerings into the water. Spanish accounts transformed a ceremony into a metropolis, and explorers including Gonzalo Pizarro and Sir Walter Raleigh spent fortunes and lives chasing the distortion.
Raleigh's 1595 expedition ended in failure. His second, in 1617, cost him his son's life and ultimately his own head.