Author: National Museum of the Philippines

This week on #MaritimeMonday features the Chinese blue and white porcelain pen boxes from the Santa Cruz and the Lena Shoal shipwrecks, Southeast Asian trade vessels that sank in the Philippines around 1488–1505 CE (Common Era). To learn more about the Santa Cruz shipwreck, please see https://tinyurl.com/3z7hxfm4. For Lena Shoal shipwreck, please see https://tinyurl.com/2p9f8rkn. 

Part of both shipwreck ceramic assemblages were very limited quantities of Chinese blue and white porcelain pen boxes. They are considered scholarly objects used to store reed calligraphy pens and assorted paraphernalia to write Arabic and Persian. They are thickly potted pieces with covers that have a rectangular form with rounded ends and are painted in dark cobalt blue with a bluish glaze. The interior of the pen box is divided into compartments to fit an inkwell, a porcelain container for sand and a silk or linen thread porcelain container. The exterior side is decorated with lotus scrolls, classical scroll borders, lotus petal panels, floral branches and sprays, and waves. 

Pen box shapes are traditionally non-Chinese and may have been produced following Islamic metalworks that began to appear in the 12th century CE in the Middle East and/or Central Asia. As shipwreck objects, these were certainly destined for Muslim scholars and civil servants in the littoral societies of Islamic Southeast Asia, the Indian Ocean, and maybe in the Middle East during the late 15th century CE. 

In compliance with the recent announcement of the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Infectious Diseases (IATF), placing the National Capital Region (NCR) under Alert Level 3, the National Museum Complex in Manila will only be accepting fully vaccinated adults (ages 18 to 65 years old) starting January 3, 2022, in a limited capacity.

Admission is FREE but all visitors are required to RESERVE ONLINE by clicking BOOK A TOUR on this website at least a day before the visit. 

#SantaCruzShipwreck

#LenaShoalShipwreck

#ChineseBlueAndWhitePorcelainPenBox

#StaySafe

#BeatCOVID19

Text, Poster, and Photos by the Maritime and Underwater Cultural Heritage Division

© The National Museum of the Philippines (2022)

To conclude the series on the celebration of the feast of Santo Niño this month, the #NationalMuseumPH introduces another festival, the Pasalamat Festival – a festivity commemorating the arrival of the Santo Niño image in the Philippines and in Pagadian City, Zamboanga del Sur in Western Mindanao. 

Like the Kahimunan Festival of Butuan City and the Sakay-Sakay Festival of Maasin City, Pasalamat Festival is held during the 3rd week of January. From the word “pasalamat”, the festival is held to give thanks for the blessings they have received throughout the year. The 500^th anniversary of the arrival of the Santo Niño image in the Philippines was celebrated in 2021, making it the oldest Catholic icon in the country. 

The festival’s highlight is a fluvial parade (regatta), along with trade exhibitions, as well as Mutya ng Pagadian City. However, the majority of the festival’s activities were canceled from 2020 to 2021 with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. A motorcade was held in place of a procession and the number of people allowed to hear novena masses was also set to a minimum in 2021. The same activity was held on January 6, 2022 wherein an image of the Sto. Niño was paraded from the city center to the Sto. Niño Cathedral Parish Church.

Last January 15, 2022, the vibrant ritual dance showdown featuring street performers and festival queens holding the image of the Santo Niño in different garbs were held. With the ongoing pandemic, only fully vaccinated participants and guests were allowed to participate. Physical distancing was observed and the performers could only remove their masks during their presentation. 

Ever wondered why the majority of the Sto. Niño festivals are held in January when the image supposedly arrived first in Cebu on April 1521? One of the known reasons for this is that Rome granted the Philippines special permission to celebrate the feast of Sto. Niño every 3rd Sunday of January.  Perhaps you may have some ideas too? Let us know and follow the #NationalMuseumPH for more features about our rich and colorful celebrations. 

#PasalamatFestival

#PagadianCity

#SantoNiño

#PhilippineFestival

Text and poster by the NMP Ethnology Division

Photo courtesy of the Asenso Pagadian Facebook Page (City Public Information Page of the Local Government of Pagadian)

© The National Museum of the Philippines (2022)

The #NationalMuseumPH celebrates the 112^th birth anniversary of National Artist Vicente Silva Manansala, born #OnThisDay in 1910.

Macabebe, Pampanga-born and 1981 National Artist for Painting, Vicente Silva Manansala was the son of Perfecto Manansala and Engracia Silva. He spent his childhood in Intramuros, Manila and grew up with fellow artists Antonio Dumlao and Jose Alcantara. He worked as a newsboy, a distributor of programs in movie houses, and a billboard painter. He also took drawing lessons under Ramon Peralta (1877-1940), a renowned scenographer.

In 1930, he earned his fine arts degree at the University of the Philippines. After college, he worked as an illustrator for the Philippines Herald. He formed associations with Carlos ‘Botong’ Francisco, Cesar Legaspi, and Hernando Ocampo, who would eventually become National Artists. After almost two decades, Manansala received a UNESCO scholarship grant to study at Ecole de Beaux Arts in Montreal, Canada for six months. In 1950, he went to France and studied at the University of Paris under a French government scholarship. He was mentored by French artist Fernand Léger who advised him to simplify the shapes and colors in his works. He eventually rendered figures and objects and simplified them into basic geometric shapes while applying layers of colors. This style, which he pioneered and developed, is called transparent cubism. 

His renowned subjects include Philippine urban and rural themes, the Filipino family, mother and child, woman, chickens, and carabao (water buffalo). Exhibited at The Philippine Center New York (PCNY) Core Collection of 1974: A Homecoming Exhibition located in Galleries XXVII to XXVIII of the National Museum of Fine Arts (NMFA) is his 1965 watercolor entitled “Kalabaw.” This is the only work of Manansala on display in this exhibition gallery. 

Manansala died on August 22, 1981, in Makati City.

You may view other works of National Artist Vicente Manansala at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Hall, the Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) Northwest Hall, and the PHILAM Life Hall. These are all found on the Third Floor of the National Museum of Fine Arts.  Check the 360 Tour of the PCNY Homecoming Exhibition on this website, or reserve a slot for your visit.

Text and photo by NMP-FAD

#VicenteManansala

#OnThisDay

#MuseumFromHome

©National Museum of the Philippines (2022)

Did you know that stingrays have teeth?

This week’s #DignayanBiyernes features a tiny yet fascinating piece of fossil from the National Paleontological Collection. Let us learn today about the fossilized teeth of a stingray.

This small piece is a fragment of a stingray tooth. It was collected by #NationalMuseumPH researchers from Candoni, Negros Occidental in 2017. This collection was part of the joint fieldwork of the NMP and paleontologists from the National Museum of Nature and Science in Japan. It was found together with many other marine fossils like coral fragments, oyster shells, and various clams and snails. 

In other countries, fossils of stingray teeth are very common. Oftentimes, they are found together with shark teeth. A complete skeleton fossil of a stingray however is quite rare. They are mostly from the older or extinct species of stingray. 

Stingrays are cartilaginous fishes like a shark. This means that their skeleton is not made of bones but cartilage. They are generally marine creatures from tropical or subtropical regions. Their teeth are modified scales that are regularly replaced. Today, different stingray species are becoming more threatened and vulnerable to extinction. The IUCN listed the common stingray as a vulnerable species while a few other species are in much more critical status. 

Find this fossil and more at the Life Through Time Galley of the NMNH. Book your tour through this website.

#MuseumFromHome

#StaySafe

#BeatCOVID19

Text and image by the NMP Geology and Paleontology Division

© National Museum of the Philippines (2022)

As part of our #MuseumFromHome series highlighting the festivals related to the feast of the Santo Niño, your #NationalMuseumPH features the Sakay-Sakay Festival of Maasin City in Southern Leyte. The festival, held every 3rd Sunday of January, consists of a fluvial parade, street dancing competitions and other festive events. 

The celebration traces its origin to the Sinulog Festival commemorating the arrival of the Holy Child’s image to the Philippines when it was gifted by Ferdinand Magellan to Queen Juana, the wife of Rajah Humabon, in 1521. As the celebration of the feast of the Santo Niño spread across the Visayas region, Maasin City held their own version of “sinulog” through the Sakay-Sakay Festival. In the past, the street dancing activities were confined to the city center and culminated in the plaza before the celebration evolved to its current form. 

The Sakay-Sakay Festival now highlights a fluvial parade starting at the Maasin City port, where bancas and pump boats, garbed with colorful banners, flaglets and various images of the Santo Niño, compete against each other for the best decoration. Aboard these boats, dancers sway to drumbeats while carrying small images of the Holy Child. Other activities include the coastal decoration, face painting, and the street dancing competition highlighting an elegantly garbed ‘festival queen’ carrying the image of the Santo Niño during the performance.

With the onset of the pandemic, the local government has canceled the customary activities of the Sakay-Sakay Festival to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection. As a safer alternative, they held the Sakay-Sakay Festival Throwback Photo Contest in 2021 as a way to keep the spirit of this important event alive among the Maasinhons. 

#SakaySakayFestival 

#MaasinCity 

#SantoNiño

#PhilippineFestival

Text and poster by the NMP Ethnology Division 

Photo courtesy of the City Tourism Office of Maasin

In our #MuseumFromHome series, this week’s feature of our #BuiltTraditionThursday is the People’s Museum and Library of Bayombong, formerly the Old Provincial Capitol Building of the province of Nueva Vizcaya, an Important Cultural Property of the Municipality of Bayombong.

The structure that would come to be known as the People’s Museum and Library was built in 1906, burned in 1926 but was restored, and then rebuilt and renovated after World War II in 1945 to serve as the “Capitol Offices of Nueva Vizcaya”. The property also served to house several ancillary support facilities including Trial Courts, Fiscal Offices, and banking operations. The current structure remains that of the 1945 restoration, and it was adaptively reused from a Capitol Building into the People’s Museum and Library of Bayombong, when a new Capitol was built in 1993. 

A two-storey building, the Museum and Library is located on a lot measuring approximately 1400 square meters and having a building footprint of around 22.15 by 21.9 meters (485 square meters), the lot is bounded by Capt. Dela Cruz Street to the east, Sto. Domingo street to the north, and Burgos Street to the west. The building is also adjacent to several prominent landmarks, including the Children’s Park and the Cathedral of St. Dominic and its adjoining plaza. 

Though rebuilt well into and past the American colonial period in 1945, the Museum and Library building was restored in keeping with the Spanish colonial influence of its original design. Features such as massive brick walls, wood paneling, and capiz shell windows typical of Spanish era structures (particularly those of the bahay-na-bato) in the Philippines remain intact. In its current capacity, the property maintains a repository of artefacts and documents depicting the social, cultural, political, religious, military, and educational life of the Novo Vizcayanos; including but not limited to anthropological dioramas, local and ethnic products and methods, and archival records. 

In more recent history, due to the ever-present challenge of disaster risk management for heritage structures, the provincial government of Nueva Vizcaya has initiated efforts for protection development programs and preventive maintenance for the People’s Museum and Library of Bayombong. This conscious effort was catalyzed by the onslaught of category-4 Typhoon Ulysses in November 2020, and spurned on by Typhoon Odette in December 2021. This development project promises the safeguarding of the Important Cultural Property through faithful restoration and modernization with respect for the structure’s-built heritage. 

Text and illustrations/photos by Ar. Armando Arciaga III, AABHD