I wanted to give the feel of a sophisticated remnant of an ancient era. The pre-columbian era was obvious to me as it englobes such a long and yet not very well known period of time, that it is still nowadays a source of potential discoveries...
Skull and teeth were sculpted in Zbrush, I used Houdini to grow some gold on the teeth, rendered it with Arnold for Maya and did some adjustements in Photoshop.