El Dorado El Dorado El Dorado (, ; Spanish for "the golden one"), originally "El Hombre Dorado" ("The Golden Man") or "El Rey Dorado" ("The Golden King"), was the term used by the Spanish Empire to describe a mythical tribal chief ("zipa") of the Muisca native people in then Spanish colonial province of Colombia, who, as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. The legends surrounding El Dorado changed over time, as it went from being a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally to an empire. A second location for El Dorado
Dorado is treated (like the adjacent asterism Argo Navis) as a feminine proper name of Greek origin ending in -ō (like "Io" or "Callisto" or "Argo"), which have a genitive ending "-ūs". Dorado was one of twelve constellations named by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman. It appeared: Dorado has been represented historically as a dolphinfish and a swordfish; the latter depiction is inaccurate. It has also been represented as a goldfish. The constellation was also known in the 17th and 18th century as Xiphias. The name "Dorado" ultimately become dominant and was adopted