Muisca raft

Common card · No. 348234

The Muisca raft (Balsa Muisca in Spanish), sometimes referred to as the Golden Raft of El Dorado or the Pasca raft, is a pre-Columbian votive piece created by the Muisca, an Andean people of Colombia in the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes that established multiple chiefdoms in the region. The raft was a propitiatory offering made within the historical context of the emerging muisca chiefdom of Pasca. According to some scholars, 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. However, other anthropologists and historians consider the raft to not refer specifically to the Guatavita ceremony, as other, similar ceremonies were documented across muisca territory. The figure was created between 1295 and 1410...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Pedro Szekely from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0