MANUGGUL JAR
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Secondary burial jar
From Manunggul Cave of tabon Caves at Lipuun point Palawan.
Dating from 890-710 B.C. Late Neolithic era
Excavated and discovered by Robert Fox and Miguel Antonio in 1962 along side the discovery of the
remains of Tabon Man.
Tabon Caves are known to be a site of jar burials with artifacts dating a range from 4250-2000 BP.
78 jars and earthenwares including the manunggul jar was discovered on the subsurface and surface of
the Chamber
Each artifacts varied in designs and form and from , but this was evidently types of funerary pottery.
This represents the journey of two souls to the after life.
Early Filipinos believed that a man is composed of A BODY, A LIFE , A LIFE FORCE(GINHAWA
AND KALULUWA)
This explains why the design of the cover of the Jar features 3 faces.
(THE SOUL, THE BOATMAN, AND THE BOAT ITSELF.
This is considered as a master piece.
The Jar and its lid was made, designed and painted with natural iron and hematite.
The two human figures in a boat represents a voyage to the afterlife, the boatman is holding a missing
paddle while the other one on his front shows hands crossed on his chest is a widespread practice in the
Philippines when arranging the corpse.
The depiction of seawaves on the lid was same from Sa Huynh(Sa Hwenn) culture pottery in Vietnam.
These people migrated from west to east- from Borneo-palawan to Southern Vietnam.
The inside of the jar contains human bones covered in Red paint like Egyptians burial practice.
The Jar was also found to be equipped with numerous bracelets.
Manunggul Jar shows that the Filipinos culture is represented and reflected by their ancestors religious
belief.
This belief is connected with the AUSTHENESIAN BELIEF OF ANITO.(everything has a spirit.
Austhenesian means people in TAIWAN, MALAY PENINSULA, MAINLAND AND MARITIME
SOUTHEAST ASIA, MICRONESIA, COASTAL NEW GUINEA, ISLAND OF MELANESIA,
POLYNESIA, AND MADAGASCAR.
The Manunggul Jar’s cover provides a clear example of a culture liked between the archeological past
and ethnographic present.
The Monunggul Jar tells us how important the waters were to our ancestors. The sea and rivers were
their form of trade, information and communication.
This are the reasons why Manunggul Jar is a very “sacred Jar for them because for them, even things
from nature have souls, have lives of their own, respect nature more than those who thought that it can
be used for the ends of man.
LAGUNA COPPERPLATE
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The Laguna Copperplate Inscription (Filipino: Inskripsyon sa binatbat na tanso ng Laguna) is an official
acquittance certificate inscribed onto a copper plate in the Shaka year 822 (Gregorian A.D. 900). It is the
earliest known calendar-dated document found within the Philippine Islands.
The plate was found in 1989 by a laborer near the mouth of the Lumbang River in Wawa, Lumban,
Laguna, in the Philippines.
The inscription was mainly written in Old Malay using the Early Kawi script, with a number of technical
Sanskrit words and Old Javanese or Old Tagalog honorifics
the text was first translated in 1991 by Antoon Postma, a Dutch anthropologist and Hanunó'o script
researcher
The inscription is made out of copper and measures about 20 by 30 centimeters (7.9 in × 11.8 in), with
the words directly embossed onto the plate. It differs in manufacture from Javanese scrolls of the period,
which had the words inscribed onto a heated, softened metal scroll.
TRANSLATION:
“this copperplate states the forgives the descendants of Namwaran from a debt of 926.4 grams of gold, as
granted by the chief of Tondo (in Manila) and the authorities of a number of locations in Luzon”