Muisca El Dorado Ritual Raft

This gold-silver-copper votive piece (1200–1500) shows a raft with a central cacique and twelve attendants arranged in openwork form. It was created with the lost-wax method (casting from a wax model that melts away during firing). The artifact was recovered from a cave near Pasca and relates to offerings made at Lake Guatavita. Its imagery indicates ideas of sacred authority, ritual wealth, and ceremonial renewal in Muisca tradition.