The exquisitely crafted gold objects used techniques beyond anything ever seen by European eyes.
Other pieces were seized from grave robbers and smugglers, meaning that the 10, 000 gold objects in the Hermitage's collection are necessarily an accidental sampling of history.
This El Dorado-inspired looting of gold has meant that the vast majority of precious pre-Columbian gold objects have been melted down and the real value of these artefacts as clues to the workings of an ancient culture have been lost forever.
Somewhere among all that they can be sure of coins, gold and silver bullion and objects made of metal of various kinds.
More than 270, 000 artefacts (Chinese ceramics, religious objects, jewellery, gold coins, pottery etc) were salvaged from the wreck, giving the discovery exceptional historical value.
Perhaps if he had, like Egyptologist Howard Carter, discovered gold, jewelry and other fabulous funerary objects during his exploration of the ancient overland road to China rather than musty books of Buddhist sutras (even if they did include the world's oldest known printed volume), his lasting fame might have been secured.
It is one of the earliest wrecks dating from the beginning of Spanish colonisation and disappeared with a huge cargo of gold and silver along with gems and cultural objects specially collected to show the king of Spain the extent of the wealth of the New World.
Experts say this may explain why some objects are very worn in places because gold is very soft unless it is alloyed with other metals.
There are inlaid camel-head benches and painted peacock-and-lion chairs from Rajasthan, a table made from a traditional Indian four-poster bed decorated with embroidered cloth of gold, Hindu devotional paintings, showcases housing exquisite jewellery and carved peasant objects.
Eva Beuys, the artist's widow, still lives in the city, and the gold-hued "Palazzo Regale" installation, with its evocation of ancient burial rituals, coupled with objects recalling the artist's own life, is of supreme importance, says Ms. Temkin.
She procured chains, pendants, dinnerware, candlesticks and other objects from the 47th Street diamond district while still living in New York around 2007, before the gold market skyrocketed.
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