Muisca raft

The Muisca raft (Balsa Muisca in Spanish), sometimes referred to as the Golden Raft of El Dorado, is a pre-Columbian votive piece created by the Muisca, an indigenous people of Colombia in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes. The piece probably refers to the gold offering ceremony described in the legend of El Dorado, which occasionally took place at Lake Guatavita. In this ritual, the new chief (zipa), who was aboard a raft and covered with gold dust, tossed gold objects into the lake as offerings to the gods, before immersing himself into the lake. The figure was created between 1295 and 1410 AD by lost-wax casting in an alloy of gold with silver and copper. The raft was part of an offering that was placed in a cave in the municipality of Pasca. Since its discovery in 1969, the Muisca raft has become a national emblem for Colombia and has been depicted on postage stamps. The piece is exhibited at the Gold Museum in Bogotá. Muisca The Muisca people, also known as the Chibcha, were situated at 9000 ft elevation in the eastern Andes of Colombia near modern day Bogotá, the town of Tunja, and Lake Guatavita. While most Muisca villages had a chief and priests, the Muisca were generally an egalitarian agricultural people. They made pottery and textiles and mined emeralds and salt, but they lacked the gold and beeswax needed to create their signature gold pieces. For those raw materials, they bartered with neighboring peoples. Because the Muisca were an egalitarian people, gold was not concentrated in the hands of few. Instead, all Muisca families decorated their doors and windows with gold objects. Gold was used in Central America by the first centuries AD and was spiritually and symbolically important to Pre-Columbian peoples. The countries of the Isthmus—Costa Rica, Panama, and Colombia—emerged as a single goldworking region that shared styles and methodology, such as the use of lost-wax casting instead of hammering.