Gold was a common artistic metal to the advanced civilizations of Pre-Columbian America.
Religious, purely decorative, status symbols or just works of art, master goldsmiths created them all.
The beauty of the works was lost on the vast majority of Europeans who saw only the monetary value of the gold items melted down into bullion, coins or jewelry more to European aesthetics.
The immense amount of gold (as well as silver and precious gems) available in the "New World" became a lure to countless European adventurers, explorers, conquistadors and the governments that encouraged them.
The untold wealth of the New World would lead to colonization, the destruction of the native civilizations and eventual Europeanization of the entire America's.
What little of the stunning gold art works that remain are but a small portion of the vast treasures that were destroyed and repurposed by the Europeans.
Little did the artisans of this golden beauty realize that their works of art would help to hasten the destruction of the world they knew. The lure of gold-gold-gold would lead to many more mass movements of Europeans, but none would so change the world as did these wonders of the golden arts of the New World.
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