Fool's gold.

Originally prompted by demand for expensive spices at home and the need for a quicker trade route to Asia, the first conquistadores to land in Latin America from Spain quickly latched on to a new and enticing master, gold. Early reports of shimmering cities brought waves of adventurers storming beaches in Cuba and Florida to spots as remote and icy as deep southern Chile. It didn't pan out for most of them, but the arrival of foreigners did bring horrific new diseases, military and political violence, subjugation in the name of God, slavery and plenty of plain and simple slaughter. The long sad history of the clash of civilizations old and new is written in the trinkets that survive. Recording and remembering the pre-Columbian cultures that made them is important, and so is remembering the fundamental greed that effectively wiped those civilizations out.

PHOTO BY DANIEL MUNOZ/REUTERS * CARTAGENA, COLOMBIA