Potosí is a city, the capital of the
department of Potosí in
Bolivia. It is claimed to be the
highest city in the world at a nominal 4,090 m.(13,420 feet)
[1] It lies beneath the Cerro de Potosí — sometimes referred to as the Cerro Rico ("rich mountain") — a
mountain popularly conceived of as being "made of"
silver ore, which has always dominated the city. Cerro de Potosí's peak is 4,824 meters (15,827 feet) above sea level.
There is no satisfactory etymological study of the word Potosí. According to legend, circa 1462, Huayna Capac, the eleventh monarch of Peru, "set out for Ccolque Porco and Andaccaua, the location of his mines from which were taken innumerable arrobas of silver." (An arroba is a Spanish unit of weight equivalent to approximately 25 pounds.) "Before leaving there, he saw [Potosí], and admiring its beauty and grandeur, he said (speaking to those of his Court) 'This doubtless must have much silver in its heart'; whereby he subsequently ordered his vassals to go to Ccolque Porco ... and work the mines and remove from them all the rich metal. They did so, and having brought their tools of flint and reinforced wood, they climbed the hill; and after having probed for its veins, they were about to open those veins when they heard a frightening thunderous noise which shook the whole hill, and after this, they heard a voice which said 'Do not take the silver from this hill, because it is destined for other masters.' Amazed at hearing this reasoning, the Incan vassals desisted in their purpose and returned to Porco and told the king what had happened; relating the occurrence in their own language, on coming to the word noise, they said 'Potocsí' which means there was a great thunderous noise, and from that later was derived (corrupting a letter) the name of potosi."
It is currently believed that the etymology of Potosí is Quechua. However, in Quechua the phoneme p'otoj does not refer to a thunderous noise, whereas it does in Aymara. Thus, if Potosí encompasses the idea of a thunderous noise, the locution would have an Aymaran root rather than a Quechuan. The actual sharp structure of the term is contrary to the nature of both Aymara and Quechua. Another explanation, given by several Quechua speakers, is that potoq is an onomatopoeic word that reproduces the sound of the hammer against the ore, and oral tradition has it that the town derived its name from this word.
Founded in 1546 as a mining town, it soon produced fabulous wealth, becoming one of the largest cities in the Americas and the world with a population exceeding 200,000 people.
