SOURCES OF HISTORICAL DATA

Historical Data

 Sourced from artifacts that have been left by the past

 These artifacts can either be relics or remains, or the testimonies of witnesses of the past
 Thus, historical sources are those materials from which the historians construct meaning
 A source is an object from the past or a testimony concerning the past on which historians
depend to create their own depiction of that past
 A historical work or interpretation is thus the result of such depiction
 The source provides evidences about the existence of an event; and a historical interpretation is
an argument about the event
Relics

 Relics or remains, whose existence offer researchers a clue about the past. (e.g. relics and remains
of a pre historic settlement)
 Artifacts can be found where relics of human happenings can be found (e.g. coin, ruin,
manuscript, book, portrait, stamp, piece of wreckage, strand of hair, or other archaeological or
anthropological remains)
 These objects, however, are never the happenings of events; if written documents, they may be
the results or the records of events.
 Whether artifacts or documents, they are materials out of which history may be written
Testimonies of Witnesses

 Whether oral or written, may have been created to serve as records or they might have been
created for some other purposes
 All these describe an event, such as the record of property of exchange, speeches, and
commentaries
Historians deal with the dynamic or genetic (the becoming) as well as the static (the being) and
aims at being interpretative (explaining why and how things happened and were interrelated) as well as
descriptive (telling what happened, when and where and who took part.)
Besides, such descriptive data as can be derived directly and immediately from surviving artifacts
are only small parts of the periods to which they belong.
A historical context can be given to them only if they can be placed in a human setting.
The lives of human beings can be assumed from the retrieved artifacts, but without further
evidence the human contexts of these artifacts can never be recaptured with any degree of certainty.

There are at least 5 sources of historical data:

1. Written sources

 Everything what is written; for example, letters, diaries, contracts, bulletins, newspaper accounts,
journals, wills, testaments, books. Periodicals, and others
2. Orally transmitted materials

 Everything that is unwritten and passed on through word of mouth; for example, myths, folklore,
legends, tula, balagtasan, folk songs, kwentong bayan, pabula, and others
3. Artistic production

 Historical paintings, portraits, vases, carvings, engravings, sketches, woven tapestries, and the
like
4. Electronic data

 Everything produced through the use of energy like films documentaries, radio, television,
computer data, and others
5. Relics and remains

 Include fossils, artifacts, bones, vases, potteries, language, traditions, buildings, roads, bridges,
trails, and others