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.

Background

Muisca people

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.

Muisca goldworking

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. Metalworking in the region began with objects for religious rituals and royalty, rather than as tools, weapons, or currency; this symbolic use from the outset established a precedent for metalworking throughout the region’s history.

Muisca gold pieces are distinct from those of other Pre-Columbian peoples, in terms of their use, manufacture, and appearance. The Muisca votive offerings, called ''tunjos'', were not worn as clothing or jewelry, but instead were used for symbolic purposes. They were often small enough to hold in the hand; sometimes as small as . The ''tunjos'' were lost-wax casts using ''tumbaga'', a gold alloy containing as much as 70% copper, whereas in other regions gold was hammered into the desired shape. Furthermore, the Muisca objects are identifiable by their rough surfaces in comparison to the polished gold in surrounding regions. Muisca art tended to include components that referred back to the raw material used in their own construction; for example, a statue who is depicted to be holding, in pouches, the substance from which it is made. Birds are a common motif in Colombian gold work.

Muisca goldworking influenced a wide region. Local copies of Muisca votive figurines have been found as far away as the Linea Vieja region on the Atlantic slope of Costa Rica. Some of these design traditions remained unchanged for 1,000 years and were prominent at the time of contact.

Legend of El Dorado

The Muisca raft commemorates a ceremony, detailed in the Legend of El Dorado, in which a new king covered his entire body in gold dust, floated on a raft to the center of a lake, and threw large quantities of gold votive offerings into the lake. The legend of El Dorado emerged from six accounts, three by the chroniclers Fernandez de Oviedo, Pedro Cieza de Leon, and Juan de Castellanos, and three by the conquistadores Gonzalo Pizarro, Jimenez de Quesada, and Sebastian de Benalcazar; subsequent descriptions are elaborations upon these six accounts. While the story was embellished with each telling, every version had several details in common, such as the lake and the gold dust. We also know that Muisca venerated lakes. Jennings details the ceremony as it occurs in one telling:

However, some experts doubt that the El Dorado depicted in the legend represents the ceremony at Lake Guatavita. The city of El Dorado probably never existed, but El Dorado the Golden Man has a foundation in historical truth; El Dorado probably referred to the ruler of the Muisca.

Overview

Description

The Muisca raft is a small votive offering made from an alloy of gold, silver, and copper. It measures long, by wide, by high. The raft contains eleven human figures — a central, large seated figure representing the chief or ''cacique'', surrounded by ten smaller figures, representing attendants and oarsmen, some of whom wear masks. The figures rest on top of an oval-shaped reed raft, which is composed of a triangle-patterned central support structure, with wire coils around the perimeter. Like most Muisca goldworking, there are no figures-in-the-round; each figure is cast as a flat plaque, adorned on the front side with wire-like details and gold jewelry.

The surface of the piece is unpolished and appears crude in comparison to Muisca jewelry, but like other votive offerings, the Muisca raft was not intended to be decorative but rather a symbolic offering; the appearance of this piece was typical for its use. Microscopic examination did not reveal any joint anywhere on the raft; the piece, and every ornamental detail, including dangling gold decorations, was created in a single pour of gold. The manufacturing process was intensive; the entire process, from shaping a beeswax template to breaking the mould and revealing the gold piece, likely required hundreds of hours of work undertaken by a single craftsperson.

Main figure

The central figure, the ''cacique'', is naked, seated, and folds his arms over his chest in a W pattern, a common feature in Muisca gold pieces. He wears a large rectangular nose pendant, adorned with bird heads and trapezoidal decorations, as well as a headdress and possibly a crown. Additional trapezoidal adornments can be seen: three pendants, two ear pendants, and three others around the body. He is seated on a ''duho'' (a small chair with a high backrest), and leaning backwards. The ''cacique'' is surrounded by banners and feather-like projections.

The main figure’s importance is apparent from his size and his richly adorned body. The nose pendant is also significant in identifying the chief; according to one Spanish chronicler, future ''caciques'' were locked in houses from a young age and when they emerged years later, they pierced their ears and wore gold nose pendants to indicate their new status. Nose pendants were among the most detailed and ornate items in Muisca goldworking. The duho is also associated with the chief, and it is significant that none of the figures that surround the central figure face him—a sign of reverence to the ''cacique''.

Attendants and oarsmen

The remaining ten figures that surround the cacique, while all much smaller than him, can be grouped into three sizes: two larger figures standing in the front and center of the raft; two medium sized seated figures that surround them; and six smaller standing figures. The two large figures in the front each wear a headdress with eleven feathers, carry a ''maraca'' (rattle), wear a mask in the shape of an animal head, and carry a trident next to their waist. The two medium-sized figures flank the larger two, and wear a coiled headdress possibly meant to represent fabric. They each carry a ''poporo'' — a gourd-shaped flask that contained the lime that was chewed along with coca leaves. The smaller six figures are positioned around the perimeter of the raft and each wears a headdress and carries a small stick.

Technical details

The uniformity of the figures suggest that the raft was created by a single, highly trained artisan. Researchers have applied radiocarbon dating to remnants of charcoal that were left on the raft by the casting mould; the tests yielded a date of 1295–1410 AD for the raft’s construction. Using X-ray fluorescence, researchers have identified the “chemical signature” of the gold used in the Muisca raft, and concluded that it came from the lowlands near the banks of the Magdalena river where people still pan for gold today. The makeup of the Muisca raft is as follows:

Discovery

There are two known Muisca golden rafts; one from Pasca, the subject of this article, and another from Siecha, which was lost. The Siecha raft was the first to be discovered, and it aided in the discovery of the Pasca raft. In 1856, two brothers from Siecha by the names of Joaquín and Bernardino Tovar partially drained a nearby lagoon, and found a votive raft that they associated with the ceremony referred to in the legend of El Dorado. It was in the hands of diplomat Salomón Koppel who sold it to a museum in Germany, the Ethnologisches Museum. However, when the artifact arrived in the port of Bremen it was destroyed in a fire. Nevertheless, through reverse engineering, a group from Universidad de los Andes (UNIANDES), in Bogotá, Colombia, recreated the Siecha raft in gold and identified a plausible casting process.

A century later, in 1969, a peasant from Pasca by the name of Cruz María Dimaté found several pieces of gold and ceramics in a cave, and described them to Father Jaime Hincapié Santamaría, a parish priest. The priest showed Dimaté a drawing of the Siecha raft in a book by Liborio Zerda

HOME


Content is Copyleft
Website design, code, and AI is Copyrighted (c) 2014-2017 by Stephen Payne


Consider donating to Wikimedia



As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases