Memorializing the Dead

Concluding the series on concepts on death and mortuary practices, today’s #TrowelTuesday features memorials and other ways of remembering the departed as well as events, through an archaeological perspective.

Fateful events in history such as wars, heroic deaths, and major catastrophes often inspire or serve as an important lesson to the community or generation that remembers them. Such events are often memorialized through transforming spaces and landscapes by erecting structures like shrines and monuments. The creation of memorials is a common practice across different cultures, serving as their way of coping with grief associated to tragedy.

In the Philippines, major events that caused the lives of many are honored with memorial shrines, like the Pinaglabanan Shrine in San Juan City, Dambana ng Kagitingan in Bataan, Martial Law Memorial Wall in Manila, and Yolanda Memorial Monument in Tacloban City.

In the context of Philippine prehistory, memorializing the dead is not materialized in monumental structures, unlike in other cultures of the wider Austronesian region who practiced building megalithic structures for the same spiritual and cosmological purpose. Archaeologists argue that the lack of prehistoric megalithic structures in the country may be attributed to its landscape, constant extreme weather disturbances, and being a hotspot of volcanic and seismic activities. Instead, our ancestors honored the dead through peculiar grave markers and burial vessels.

For instance, in prehistoric burial sites of Batanes and Catanauan in Quezon, boat-shaped burial markers made of stones and coral slabs arranged low on the ground were observed. For the prehistoric maritime communities of Southeast Asia, the boat symbolizes the spiritual journey of the soul into the afterlife. In other burial sites such as Calatagan in Batangas and Bolinao in Pangasinan, giant clam shells and brain corals were utilized as grave markers. Motifs and depictions on burial vessels can also be viewed as our ancestors’ way of remembering the dead, like the Maitum anthropomorphic burial jars and Kulaman Plateau limestone urns which depict images of the departed.

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Text by Ivan Cultura and poster by Timothy James Vitales | NMP Archaeology Division

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