You are cordially invited

to celebration of eternal life in

heaven by JESUS.
Your presence is highly
appreciated

The Mercado Mansion is a heritage house located
in Carcar, Cebu, Philippines. It is a two-storey bahay-
na-bato painted Mediterranean blue owned by the
Mercado clan along Cebu South Road. It was
declared a Heritage House by the National Historical
Commission of the Philippines in 2009.
One of the museums in the complex is Padre
Burgos’s House, which the locals call bahay na bato
(house of stone). 
The martyr priest’s childhood home has his personal
belongings on display, the most memorable of which
perhaps are vintage writing tools that the priest used
to compose letters and manifestos.

Calle Crisologo is a street of old Spanish

structures, mostly houses of wealthy families and
Filipino-Chinese traders. This is where you will see
the famous cobblestone streets that represent
Vigan’s image. 
 The Torogan is the ancestral house and the royal
residence of the upper-class Maranao. It is commonly found
in Marawi City and other areas in Lanao del Sur province.

Within the sultanate, no one can have a house bigger

than the Torogan which is the dwelling place of the datu
along with his wives and children. Living in a traditional
Torogan house signifies rank, prestige, and wealth.

Lawigs vary in size from field huts, which are raised above
ground on stilts with lean-to roofing and an outdoor cooking
area.
These structures are mainly used for sleeping.

These are common household structures which have an

interior hearth.
Usually occupied by a single-family unit, the lawig is not
normally adorned, except for an occasional wooden adornment

Mala–a-walai is a single room and partition less

structure, is a house of a well-to-do family.

Although architectural ornaments are present in the

structure, the house does not have the panolong – an
elaborately carved beam extension identified with the
royal torogan. 

A type of lashed-lug boat built by joining planks edge-to-

edge using pins, dowels, and fiber lashings. They are
found throughout the Philippines and were used largely as
trading ships up until the colonial era. The oldest known
balangay are the Butuan boats, which have been carbon-
dated to 320 AD and were recovered from several sites
in Butuan, Agusan del Norte
The Manunggul Jar is a secondary burial jar excavated from
a Neolithic burial site in the Manunggul cave of the Tabon
Caves at Lipuun Point in Palawan, Philippines. It dates from
890–710 B.C. and the two prominent figures at the top handle
of its cover represent the journey of the soul to the afterlife.

This jarlet, declared a National Cultural Treasure, is the

earliest pot recovered in the country. It has a distinct rim
that resembles a shouting or yawning person, hence the
name. Discovered by Dr. Robert Fox in Leta-Leta Cave,
northern Palawan in 1965, this jarlet is associated to the
Late Neolithic period (approximately 1000 to 1500 BC). It
was excavated in a burial site where a stone adze, as well
as other intact pieces of pottery–including a stem cup and
a footed jarlet, both of which are also declared national
cultural treasures–, were recovered.

In 2007, a group of archaeologists led by Dr. Armand Mijares

of U.P. Diliman discovered a foot bone in Callao Cave in the
town of Peñablanca, Cagayan. The said skeletal remain–
specifically the third metatarsal of the foot–is said to be “the
earliest human fossil found in the Asia-Pacific region.”

Based on a method called “uranium-series dating,” it was also

revealed that the foot bone is approximately 67, 000 years old,
predating the “Tabon Man”–long been thought to be the
country’s earliest human remains–which is only 50,000 years
old.
 Another National Cultural Treasure, this blue-and-white dish with flying
elephant design is one of only two pieces ever recovered in the world. It was
retrieved from the Lena Shoal wreck site in Palawan in 1997 through an
underwater exploration project initiated by the Far Eastern Foundation for
Nautical Archaeology (FEFNA) and the National Museum.
Made during the Middle Ming Dynasty (ca. 1500), the porcelain dish was
recovered from the wreck site of a Chinese trading vessel. It features black and
brown specks in the paste as well as lotus scroll with pointed leaves on the rim.

In its center, you can clearly see a dark-blue flying elephant design made
even more dramatic by a background of stormy and foamy waves.

The gold death mask of Oton, another National Cultural Treasure,

was discovered in the 1960s by Alfredo Evangelista and F. Landa
Jocan. It consists of a gold nose-disc and eye-mask, both of which
were found in a gravesite in San Antonio, Oton, Iloilo.

The gold mask–dated from the late 14th to the early 15th century
A.D.–is the first of its kind recovered in the Philippines. It was part of
an ancient burial practice, with the gold mask serving as an amulet
against evil spirits.
 In 1991, archaeologists from the National Museum excavated
several clay burial jars in Ayub Cave, Pinol, Maitum, Saranggani
Province. These Metal Age (ca. 5 BC to 225 AD) jars depict
human beings and feature three types of heads: Plain, with
perforations, and with red (hematite) and black (organic matter)
paints.

The Maitum anthropomorphic burial jars also show different

types of facial expressions, setting them apart from any funeral
pottery–including Palawan’s Manunggul jar–previously recovered
in the Philippines.

The Manila Carnival was once the greatest event in the

country. It symbolized our friendship with the U.S., and was a
festival, carnival, and circus all-in-one. Seeing as the Manila
Carnival was held from 1908 to 1939, this listing for 1909 medal
means you're getting a piece from the early years of the
exposition.

The Calatagan Ritual Pot is a National Cultural Treasure dated back to the
14th and 16th centuries. It was discovered by diggers in an archaeological site in
Calatagan, Batangas in 1958, and subsequently donated to the National
Museum in 1961.

Measuring 12 cm. high and 20.2 cm. at its widest and weighing 872 grams,
this pot is considered as the country’s oldest cultural artifact with pre-Hispanic
writing. It is distinct because of the mysterious ancient symbols inscribed on its
shoulder.

Several attempts were made to decipher the inscription on the pot. In the
1960s, famed sculptor Guillermo Tolentino allegedly tried to communicate with
the spirits of the dead to come up with a translation. His output–which suggests
that the pot was an offering of a son or daughter to a dead mother–was

Accidentally discovered in 1986 near the mouth of Lumbang River, the

Laguna Copper Plate Inscription or LCI is the earliest historical document in the
country and also the only pre-Spanish document discovered so far. Now a
National Cultural Treasure, the LCI measures 7 x 12 inches when unrolled.

In 1990, the National Museum purchased the LCI and sought help from
Antoon Postma, a Dutch national who was then the director of the Mangyan
Assistance and Research Center, to decipher the inscription.

Postma, with the help of Dr. Johan de Casparis, later found out that the LCI
was written in Kavi  (Old Javanese writing system) and the language used was a
combination of Old Tagalog, Old Javanese, Old Malay, and Sanskrit.
 This golden figurine of a female deity is the first image identified to be of
Indian origin. In 1917, it was accidentally discovered by a Manobo woman in
the banks of the Wawa River in Agusan, Mindanao after heavy rain. Shortly
after that, Philippines’ pioneer prehistorian H. Otley Beyer declared it as “the
most spectacular find yet made in Philippine archaeology.”

The gold Agusan image, which measures five and a half inches tall and
weighs nearly four pounds of 21-carat gold, is now displayed in the Field
Museum of Natural History in Chicago, USA.

The first stone structure found in Carcar, Cebu, this ancestral house was
built in the 1850s. After all the wearing and tearing that the house has
experienced, it was restored and renovated in 1989. Why Bahay na Tisa (Chalk
House), you ask? It is because the house’s original brick-tile roofing was made
from tisa (chalk).

The Agoncillo ancestral house may be considered the

oldest house in Taal since it was built in the 1700s by her
grandfather. Upon entering the house, one may observe
the well-maintained wooden walls, floorings, and furniture
of the house. Upon entering, one may see various
memorabilia, certificates, and pictures of the Agoncillo
family laminated or framed in glass to be preserved.

Casa de Segunda is also known as Luz-Katigbak

Ancestral House which is still erected on Calle Rizal in
Lipa, Batangas. This ancestral house was built in the
1880s when Lipa was envied for its wealth. The
prosperity that Lipa experienced that time was when
countries in Europe and Americas that produce coffee
were infested. Lipa became the world’s only supplier of
coffee bean. This may also be the reason why Batangas
became famous for its Kapeng Barako (brewed coffee).
 PHILIPPINE ARTIFACTS
and HOUSES

Project in Arts 5

Name: Franco Rob Angelo T. Bon

Grade & Sec.:Grade 5- St. Lorenzo Ruiz
Submitted to:
Ms. Rochelle D. Barrameda

Philippine Artifacts

Philippine houses