Gintong Pamana - Philippine Gold Treasure

Here are a few images of the gold treasure found in the Philippines. There were belts of pure gold, gold masks, gold daggers, gold ornaments, bowls, bracelets, rings, pectorals, earrings, and a pure gold rope that turned out to be a sacred thread and weighs 400 kilos, so intricately designed that one could just stare at it in wonder. I got the few images but not all.

Dagger Handle

A dagger handle from the Surigao Treasure. The swirling lines and the asymmetric form suggest raging flames surrounding a bird's head with a disk at the tip of its long beak. In Indonesia, the garuda or sun-bird was the god Vishnu's vehicle. In old Philippine languages, the sun was also called hari, or king. The symbolism here, then, is that the Butuan kings were vehicles of the divine.

Facial Covers

Scribed swirls and waves on headbands and facial covers from Butuan inspired by waves or the niaga, the snake or dragon motif, which symbolized the sea, which the ancient Filipinos mastered. The abstract pattern expresses the dynamism of ancient Philippine civilization. Those patterns and motifs survive in the southern Philippine okir design tradition. Artisans used a stylus -- perhaps just a pointed bamboo stick -- to scribe the patterns on the hammered sheet.

Gold bowl from the Surigao treasure

Ear ornament discovered in Arasasan in Mindanao.

Below are the other pictures of the gold ornament discover in Surigao. The man who allegedly found these valuable pieces of treasure sold some of them and left most of the treasure to a priest in their parish. Eventually, these gold pieces found their way to the Ayala Museum and the Central Bank of the Philippines.

 

The gold treasure in Surigao Sur

Philippines Is Rich Of Gold Treasure

Philippines is known of many treasures found from people in any place of the country. The most famous is the finding of Mr. Rogelio Rojas, a former Filipino soldier who had worked as a locksmith before allegedly discovering in a cave north of Manila a hidden chamber full of gold bars and a giant golden Buddha statue.

Lots of people hunting the Yamashita treasure anywhere in the Philippines. Some found the gold, and many of them are not lucky.

In 1981, Mr. Berto Morales, a farmer working as a bulldozer operator in an irrigation project in Surigao struck gold. He discovered a treasure trove of gold ornaments while bringing down a hill to collect filling materials.

According to the Probe documentary film, the treasures were discovered in an excavation site in Surigao. There were belts of pure gold, gold masks, gold daggers, gold ornaments, bowls, bracelets, rings, pectorals, earrings, and a pure gold rope that turned out to be a sacred thread or "sablay" and weighs 400 kilos, so intricately designed that one could just stare at it in wonder. The man who allegedly found these valuable pieces of treasure sold some of them and left most of the treasure to a priest in their parish. Eventually, these gold pieces found their way to the Ayala Museum and the Central Bank of the Philippines.

Gintong Pamana Video Made by Probe Team



After Probe's documentary, I made it a point to search more about the gold of our ancestors. What I found is something important to me since I never learned this in school. We were taught that the Spaniards came here for the spices. Maybe it is partly true but there is more to spices. I actually found a blog that proposes that the Philippines is actually a gold-rich land. In some of the accounts made by the colonizers, they described our ancestors as adorned with gold from head to toe. "Gold as big as eggs" could be found just "lying around." The king had gold in his teeth and ate in golden plates. Even his abode has pure gold as part of the structure. Wow!