A small, gilt tumbaga object was excavated by Erika Wagner at the habitation site of La Era Nueva, near the town of Mucuchíes, in the Venezuelan Andes during her 1967–68 field expedition. This object is the only Precolumbian metal artifact excavated in the Mucuchíes region and one of the few ever found in Venezuela. A complete study of the object, including wet chemical analysis, metallographic examination, and electron microanalyser scans, proved it to be of a typical tumbaga alloy, made of extremely thin, cast sheet metal, and gilt by one of the processes of depletion gilding. Both the sophistication of the metallurgy that characterizes this object as well as the lack of any other evidence for a prior metallurgical technology in the region indicate that the object could not have been made locally. It may be of Colombian origin, a product of Chibcha or Tairona goldsmiths.