Burial Goods

In the continuing observance of #Undas2021, for this week’s #TrowelTuesday let us look at the burial goods interred together with the dead in the archaeological setting.

Grave goods or furniture, burial goods, or pabaon are materials interred with the dead as part of our local mortuary tradition observed since the Neolithic Period (3000-500 Before Common Era or BCE). These materials were presumed to be buried with the dead as gifts to the ancestors or gods, as provisions, or as means to repel evil on their journey to the afterlife. The use of burial goods and the manner of interment were seen as a symbol of prestige and status of the deceased and of those who buried them.

Some examples of excavated grave goods include local potteries, tradeware ceramics, tools made from various materials, spindle whorls, barkcloth beaters, and ornaments. Early forms and types of grave goods were locally manufactured, such as local pottery, ornaments, and tools made from stone, clay, and shell. As time progressed, more items that originated outside the Philippines were observed among burial sites. Foreign objects such as glass and stone beads, iron tools, stoneware, and porcelain were extensively recovered in various burial sites across the country.

In Santa Ana, Manila, pre-colonial burials dating from the 11th to 14th century were excavated in the 1960s. Burials were interred with rich grave goods consisting of Chinese ceramics from the Sung and Yuan dynasties, earthenware, coins, glass beads, and metal implements and ornaments (https://tinyurl.com/QingpaiPorcelainBoatFigurine). 

Various sites in Calatagan, Batangas have been excavated since the 1940s, which yielded more than 1,000 burials dating around the 15th century. While the most common burial goods were earthenware vessels and foreign ceramics from China, Vietnam, and Thailand, spindle whorls, ornaments, iron implements, and shells were also present in the burial assemblages.

Early historic period burials were unearthed in the municipality of Boljoon in Cebu, dating back to the 16th to 17th century. Grave goods recovered from the site included Chinese and Japanese ceramics, iron tools, earthenware vessels and sherds, gold ornaments, glass beads, and worked bone artifacts (https://tinyurl.com/BoljoonBurials).

An increasing pattern of complexity in the burial goods was observed on sites across different periods. For example, while there was a general contrast of burials with richer grave goods and those with little to no burial goods during the Metal Age (500 BCE to 1st century), the burials during the Protohistoric Period (9th century to 1521) were much more stratified. 

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Text by Sherina Aggarao and posters by Timothy James Vitales | NMP Archaeology Division

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