# Talk:Muisca raft

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Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20120119000405/http://www.banrep.gov.co/museo/eng/s_muisca05.htm to http://www.banrep.gov.co/museo/eng/s_muisca05.htm
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Currently there are 6 references of varying quality. My assessment of them:

Reliable. Banrepcultural seems to be information published by the Gold Museum of the Bank of the Republic (Colombia), where the artifact is held.
Broken.
Not reliable because it's YouTube.
Not reliable. It's informative but not peer-reviewed.
Not sure? Is a Smithsonian channel documentary considered reliable?
The sixth reference appears to be a note from a calculation that seems like WP:OR.
I'm looking to support what's currently written with reliable sources, but seems like some of these will need to go. GuineaPigC77 (talk) 19:44, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

I created a Further reading section, and I've started adding reliable sources to it. I'll do my best to support what is currently written. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 22:35, 12 September 2022 (UTC)
I think the Smithsonian video should be considered reliable according to WP:PUBLISHED because, although it's a video and happens to be hosted on YouTube, it was produced and linked to by the Smithsonian Institution, which is reputable. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 01:28, 14 September 2022 (UTC)
I removed the calculation based on weight which appears to be WP:OR; it's not in the citation given. Furthermore, the weight comes from another source altogether, [1], which does not appear to have any editorial oversight and isn't peer-reviewed so I'm removing that as well. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 09:38, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

Currently the first sentence includes: "who established one of the four great civilisations in the Americas". I'm not sure where this is coming from. What are the other three? GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 21:56, 19 September 2022 (UTC)

Wow I was looking for images of stamps of the raft and found this. The old lead was a word-for-word copy. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 04:53, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

I just did an emergency edit to remove the plagiarized material from the lead. The lead had already been re-worked a few times, but there was still remaining material that was verbatim. It should be okay now, but if anyone wants to double check my edit that would be great. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 05:33, 1 October 2022 (UTC)
After making this edit, I ran this copyvio tool and it returned "Violation unlikely". GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 06:00, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:Muisca raft/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Caeciliusinhorto (talk · contribs) 15:10, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

This looks interesting – I will happily review it!  Initial comments soon Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 15:10, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Great thanks @Caeciliusinhorto. This is my first good article nomination so I don't know the ropes, but I will be responsive to fixing issues and making suggested edits, etc., just let me know what is needed. Thanks again! GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 05:39, 29 November 2022 (UTC)
Okay, having read through the article it looks on the whole very good – especially if this is your first time at WP:GAN!  I've made a few minor changes; do check to make sure I haven't screwed anything up.  Two queries about the actual content:
The section on "The Legend of El Dorado" starts out by saying that the legend refers to a ceremony on Lake Guatavita, but later we hear that "some experts doubt" this.  It's a bit unclear here what the scholarly consensus actually is – if this is still the subject of dispute, should the article say that the legend probably refers to the ceremony on Lake Guatavita?
The section "attendants and oarsmen" describes the smaller figures but does not actually give any interpretation of what they represent, other than in the section heading; can something be added to explain in the body text?  Presumably the smallest figures with the sticks are oarsmen, but what of the two other kinds of figure?  Do we know what their role was?
The sourcing all looks to be reliable, though I have yet to thoroughly check it to ensure it actually supports the article.  One very minor issue I did notice in reading the article over:
It was briefly in the hands of diplomat Salomón Koppel - does the source say that?  My Spanish is very limited, but the source says "La balsa de Siecha fue a parar a manos del diplomático Salomón Koppel", which I understand to mean something like "The Siecha raft came into the possession of the diplomat Salomón Koppel"; I don't see where "briefly" comes from.
I will try to spot-check the sourcing today, but assuming there are no further issues this is very close to meeting the GA criteria. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 12:05, 4 December 2022 (UTC)
Doing some more source spotchecking now, and have a couple of queries:

When the casting was complete, the artisan may have treated the piece with depletion gilding – can we get a source for this?  Sparavigna 2016 at best implies it.
Muisca artisans embraced a whole spectrum of coloration in their gold, and chose the color by selecting a particular alloy of gold, silver, and copper – here the source says that the Muisca used a whole spectrum of alloys, but not that they chose particular alloys to give a work a particular colour.  This may be sourceable to Uribe Villegas & Martinon-Torres 2012, "Composition, colour, and context in Muisca votive metalwork"?
Other than those two points, this looks good and should hopefully not take too much work to bring up to GA standard. Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 14:29, 9 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Caeciliusinhorto! Thanks so much for your comments and my apologies for the delay. I will be able to go through these carefully this week. But I agree with each of your points and think addressing them will be a big improvement. Thanks so much, and more to come this week. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 18:28, 11 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi Caeciliusinhorto, again thank you for taking the time to go through this article. Replies to your first comments:
Referring to the ceremony. I agree, and even after spending a lot of time with the material, I am also not sure what the scholarly consensus is regarding whether the raft actually refers to that ceremony. The language surrounding this has been murky. I went ahead and added "probably".
"attendants and oarsmen". Here too, I don't recall reading a description of what these smaller figures represent. One possibility would be to simply say that we don't know, but I'm not even sure that's true.
"briefly". Agree, I removed it.
Regarding your changes, they all look great! Thanks so much for cleaning up the language and finding a mistaken page number, etc. No complaints.
I will be re-reading the Uribe-Villegas 2021 article today to scan for things that may offer some clarity on these issues. More to come, including replies to your second comments. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 17:02, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
Depletion gilding. In Sparavigna 2016, the abstract says "This depletion gilding process was used by pre-Columbian populations for their “tumbaga”" And since the Muisca Raft is made of tumbaga, it seems reasonable to interpret this source as saying that the raft underwent the depletion gilding process. True, they don't say that explicitly, but it seems clear what they mean. That was my reading of it. So I'll claim that the source says this, but whether it's true or not, see next point.
Spectrum of coloration. One relevant section from "Context, Materiality, and Technology":
A final aspect that deserves mention is that, in spite of their similar compositions, the objects show rather different color hues: the raft has a warmer, more orange color, whereas the litter is exceptionally paler, with greenish tinges (see Figure 15.9). This disparity may, in part, be due to the fact that both objects lie in a particular range of the copper–silver–gold (Cu–Ag–Au) system where small changes in composition may have a very significant impact in the resulting color, as illustrated in the simplified color diagram in Figure 15.24. However, it is also possible that the litter underwent some surface treatment, deliberate or not, which has led to its peculiar appearance (cf. Martinón-Torres and Uribe Villegas 2015a for a possibly similar case in Tenjo), or that the different color may derive from some subsequent conservation or restoration treatment. Until further analyses, this will have to remain an open question.
From this it's clear that whether or not it underwent depletion gilding (or a similar treatment) is an open question. In the article we are saying "the artisan may have treated the piece with depletion gilding", which seems appropriate. Despite not being absolutely sure, experts seem to consider it enough of a possibility that it's worth discussing with respect to the Muisca raft, so it would seem reasonable to include a discussion of it here. Thoughts? GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 17:54, 15 December 2022 (UTC)
@GuineaPigC77: okay, I'm convinced about depletion gilding.  I'm still a little concerned about Muisca artisans embraced a whole spectrum of coloration in their gold, and chose the color by selecting a particular alloy of gold, silver, and copper: Uribe Villegas & Martinon-Torres 2012 seems to be arguing that while the Muisca did choose particular alloys of gold silver and copper deliberately, and while this does effect the colour, the Muisca weren't making these choices about alloys primarily due to the change in colour – indeed, they say differences in composition between some of the artefacts in poly-alloy offerings are often too small to have been visually perceptible.  I've slightly weakened the claim in this edit – how do you feel about that? Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 12:20, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
That's great. That softens the claim about intention without obscuring the connection between the alloy composition and the color. Works for me. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 17:32, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Wonderful – in that case, congratulations on your shiny new GA badge! Caeciliusinhorto (talk) 17:52, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Hooray!!! Wonderful news! Thank you for volunteering your time and interest @Caeciliusinhorto!
There are always things to improve, and top of my list is tracking down more about the smaller figures, and to address a455bcd9's concern below regarding the sourcing for the map. But these are very doable and I think the article is in great shape.
Thanks again! GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 20:52, 24 December 2022 (UTC)


### Comment by a455bcd9
The sources of File:Mapa del Territorio Muisca.svg aren't clear: when I click on the links I cannot verify them (except for "Pueblos originarios: Muiscas"). A455bcd9 (talk) 09:50, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

Hi @A455bcd9, thanks for taking an interest, and for your time. I clicked each of the four links and none were broken, but perhaps you mean something else? I wasn't the author of the image but I can dig for better sources. Is the problem that they aren't reliable, or is the problem that they don't support the material? Thanks again. GuineaPigC77 (𒅗𒌤) ☕ 18:43, 2 December 2022 (UTC)
Hi @GuineaPigC77: some links were either broken or redirecting to the homepage because not available anymore => I "rescued" them with archived versions. Then I wonder whether they are reliable sources. I think Ángel 2017 is a WP:RS. It seems to match the borders of the different territories but I don't know what the source for temples and sacred sites. A455bcd9 (talk) 19:04, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

@GuineaPigC77:, @A455bcd9:, @Caeciliusinhorto:: A recent article in "Pre-Colombian Central America, Colombia and Ecuador: an integrated approach" by prominent muisca scholars Uribe Villegas, Martinón-Torres, and Quintero Guzmán (who have written on this subject for several years) states that the musics raft, made approximately between 1200 and 1400, was made in the context of the local Pasca chiefdom, not the Guatavita ceremony. Currently, this article only proves the Guatavita ceremony happened, however no academic source from after 2000 which deals primarily with this subject (the raft) seems to say that the very real ceremony is depicted on this raft. Only short news articles and museum pages. The serious sources cited here mostly do not directly associate the raft and the ceremony if they are recent. Therefore, it is extremely important to add this debate, and to add the growing doubt about this raft found in Pasca corresponding to the (real, yet in a different context and time) Guatavita ceremony. The article currently spends too much time arguing about the ceremony and the not the object itself, however an article Guatavita ceremony would be more appropriate for this. Therefore, the Good Article label is not appropriate. To cite the conclusion, "Interpretations must be informed by an awareness of broader political tensions and ritual practice, especially propitiatory offerings led by chiefs, in the Pasca region during the late muisca period". Earlier, it's made clear that the Museo del Oro specifically has used the association to Guatavita for tourism. The book is a collection of serious studies by Dumbarton Oaks, who already published similar important studies in the 1990s and 2000s on the isthmo-colombian area, so important they contributed to changing the area's name from "intermediate" to "isthmo-Colombian". Articles about the muisca generally rely too much on old 19th/early 20th century sources or short news pieces or Museum pages, instead of relying on modern archeological studies (like the very important work of Langebaek or more recently Jorge Gamboa). Here is a link to the source: https://www.google.de/books/edition/Pre_Columbian_Central_America_Colombia_a/V1U9zgEACAAJ?hl=de 80.187.73.169 (talk) 20:34, 17 May 2025 (UTC)

Turns out the page already cited the source in question, but didn't mention the sources' main thesis (and seeing how it was cited, the one who put it there might not have read it, especially considering multiple times, works by these same authors were cited). I have now added the recent skepticism (while respecting weight of sources) and the specific historical context in Pasca (something which is not really debated, the controversial part is the interpretation of the raft as referring to a specific ceremony on lake Guatavita, beyond that the context in Pasca is not questioned to my knowledge). Only thing I'm not sure about yet is the page numbers of the citations (I used the pages of the book, not of the specific study available online). 80.187.73.169 (talk) 12:34, 18 May 2025 (UTC)