Calatagan Pottery with Star Motif

Have you ever wondered on what object the symbol of the star was represented in precolonial Philippines?

In the continuing celebration of this month’s festive season, today’s #TrowelTuesday features the earthenware pottery with a star motif from Calatagan in Batangas.

The star, generally represented as a glyph with multiple pointed tips arranged and connected in a circular manner, is a symbol shared among many cultures. While its meaning varies depending on the cultural context, it is one of the popular symbols associated with the festive or holiday season.

Archaeological excavations of the #NationalMuseumPH in the two 15th-century burial sites in Calatagan, Batangas in the 1950s, led by Dr. Robert Fox, yielded a large number of artifacts such as late 14th to 16th-century local and foreign ceramics used as grave goods (read more: https://tiny.one/TheCalataganEarthenwares). Among the retrieved artifacts were locally made earthenware pottery with incised zigzag design forming a star, with points varying in number from 6 to 9. This distinct motif, accompanied by punctate design between the lines’ field, was particularly observed on pottery vessels with lugs and spouts excavated in the area and even in neighboring sites of Santa Ana in Manila, Pila and Pangil in Laguna, and Naic in Cavite. Other pottery vessel forms also share similar incised zigzag designs that resemble the sun more than the star.

But why were the star and the sun used as earthenware decorative motifs by precolonial Filipinos?

Using archaeological data, ethnography, ethnohistory, and oral literature, archaeologist Dr. Grace Barretto-Tesoro of the UP-Archaeological Studies Program associates the relevance of celestial symbols with our ancestors’ indigenous cosmology of a tripartite universe, wherein the sun and stars represent the “Kaitaasan” (Upperworld). These celestial figures were viewed by various cultural groups within and beyond our archipelago as important or sacred in relation to their precolonial worldview and practices on the afterlife (like burials) and probably even festivities. Through our precolonial ancestors’ ingenuity, these symbols were manifested and persisted in various ethnographic and archaeological objects such as earthenware pottery.

Come and visit the #NationalMuseumPH to see some of the excavated pottery from Calatagan, Batangas by booking a tour through this website.

#CalataganEarthenwarePottery

#StarMotif

#MuseumFromHome

#YearOfFilipinoPrecolonialAncestors

#MaligayangPasko

Text by Gregg Alfonso Abbang and poster by Timothy James Vitales | NMP Archaeology Division

© National Museum of the Philippines (2021)