Recently, GMA news has featured the discovery of an interesting artifact known as 'Rizal Stone' or 'Ticao Stone'. This stone slab found in Ticao Island, Masbate appeared to have contained ancient Filipino scripts, better known as baybayin, on its both sides. This important discovery sparked curiosity (and doubts) among scholars and history enthusiasts regarding the existence and antiquity of our own writing system and apparently our own literacy.
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| The Ticao stone tablet |
So how old really have we been doing this?
We know for sure from our history classes and textbooks (if you really paid attention back then) that our knowledge on writing has already been existing by the time the Spanish landed on our shores. It definitely shows then that Filipinos can actually read and write (on our own scripts!) even before we’ve been taught of the western ABCs.
But do you know that prior to the discovery of the Rizal stone, there were other pre-Hispanic inscriptions discovered here in the Philippines? Some of them actually were even displayed at the National Museum!
Here are the four archaeologically known artifacts with inscriptions found in the Philippines:
Here are the four archaeologically known artifacts with inscriptions found in the Philippines:
- Calatagan Pot. Found in Calatagan, Batangas (hence the name) in the 1960s, this clay pot, is nothing out the ordinary – except that it contained scripts engraved around its shoulder.
the Calatagan Pot Some of the characters on this 15th-century earthenware vessel were identified as baybayin scripts, the rest of them however, are quite unrecognizable. Several scholars attempted to decipher most of these unrecognizable scripts and after some time (like around 35 years!!) they were eventually able to figure out and fully decipher the whole inscription.
But wait...
Although the scripts have been fully "decoded", we haven't seem to figure out what this inscription actually means. Attempts have been made to interpret the meaning of the Calatagan Pot inscription, ranging from a simple motherly message for her child to a much mystical ritual chant or charm. Different languages were also used in interpretation, among those were old Malay, Tagalog, Bicolano, Visayan, Pangasinense, and even Waray!! Multiple interpretations indeed, it just show that there is still a huge room for more studies for us to understand the meaning of this inscription.
- Laguna Copperplate Inscription. This thin 8x12-inch copper sheet was found in Lumban River around the late 80s. It contained old Javanese scripts known as Kawi.
the Laguna Copperplate Inscription Now, the Kawi alphabet might have indeed originated in Indonesia, but the language used here were believed to be mostly old Tagalog, with some Sanskrit or Indic technical terms. The inscription basically describes the acquittal of a debt (which costs a certain amount of gold) brought upon by a person of high position and his (or her) whole clan. It also mentioned some places in the Philippines that might still exist in the present, most notable among them is Tundun or the present Tondo in Manila. The rest of the place names however were either be in Bulacan or somewhere around Laguna and Camarines Norte. The copperplate is so accurate it actually recorded the year it was inscribed, which was Saka era 822 or 900 AD, making it the earliest calendar-dated historical document in the Philippines -- predating the Chinese and Spanish historical records!
What's with these Javanese scripts?
You might think then it's kinda strange to have our ancestors use foreign system of writing, while in fact we have our own baybayin, as shown in the Calatagan pot and the Ticao stone.
Well, let's just put this in historical context...
The copperplate was inscribed around 900 AD, which is more or less four centuries earlier than the Calatagan pot and perhaps the Ticao stone. Around that time Indianized kingdoms in Indonesia and Malaysia dominated most of the maritime affairs of Southeast Asia, from foreign trade to international relations. The extent of their influence has led to the emergence of the Malay language as the lingua franca and also to the introduction of their Indianized way of life in this archipelagic region, particularly the Hindu-Buddhist religious practices, Sanskrit vocabulary, and a system of writing for recording purposes (wouldn't that remind us of our present usage of the English language and the Roman alphabet?). The Philippines of course was no exception from this Indic influence, since they have established back then strong ties with their much influential neighbors of the south. You could actually see this influence until now on our vocabulary (diwata, salita, karma, guro, etc.). Kawi writing definitely is one of the results of our constant contact and interactions with the Indianized cultures.
But where's our baybayin then? Well, our indigenous system of writing was believed to be of recent development, most likely from their earlier Indic predecessors -- including the Kawi script!! So the baybayin might not yet existed around this time, but at least our ancestors were already knowledgable in writing and reading back then through these foreign scripts.
- Butuan Ivory Seal. Another artifact of interest would be the ivory seal stamp found in Butuan City. Recovered from a shell midden (ancient heap composed mostly of shells and sometimes with bits of animal bones, broken ceramics and other objects) in the mid 80s, this stamp contained Kawi scripts similar to the Laguna Copperplate Inscription. Again, another ancient object with foreign writing...
But wait...
the Ivory Seal from Butuan
Just like the Laguna copperplate, the Kawi inscription in the ivory seal might mean something that is very familiar to us here in the Philippines. To begin with, the inscription contained three primary scripts -- ba, ta and na.
The curl beneath the first script ba is a diacritical vowel mark, which changes the syllable ba into bu. The heart-shape underneath the script ta is another form of ba, which joins with the upper script to form the character tba (removing the /a/ sound in ta as well). The last script na has a long curl beside it, which acts as a 'vowel-killer', removing the /a/ sound in it. Now, if you put all of these scripts with additional marks together, it would form the word butban. However, /b/ can also be interchanged with /w/ in Western Malayo-Polynesian languages, so we can also read the inscription as butwan -- or Butuan!!
The inscription clearly refers to none other than our very own Butuan, the site where the ivory seal was found in the first place. This artifact was definitely used in marking or recording transactions, most likely for trade. The date of the ivory seal is 1002 AD, which is around the same era as the Laguna copperplate wherein the Philippines was actively participating on maritime affairs with the Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms in Southeast Asia.
- Butuan Silver Strip. Still in Butuan, our last artifact is this small silver strip discovered around the 1970s, much earlier than the discovery of the ivory seal and around the same time the excavations of Pre-Hispanic wooden boats known as the balangay have been undertaken. It was said to be found in association with wooden coffins, and such burials around this placed were believed to be around 14th to 15th century AD, based on the foreign Asian ceramics found with it.
the Butuan Silver Strip This 7-inch thin strip contained characters that are yet to be identified. Some Southeast Asian palaeographers believed the inscription is somewhat related to Javanese scripts (another Kawi inscription perhaps?) dating around 12th to 15th century AD. However, there were even few who think that these scripts were similar to the ones used by a distinct cultural group in Bohol called the Eskaya. As a matter of fact, they even have a translation of the inscription! (see link here)
Despite the claims, the Butuan Silver Strip Inscription is still shrouded in mystery. More in-depth studies are needed to properly decipher the writing and fully understand its meaning and importance in the past. Butuan as part of the greater Agusan valley is known for its rich prehistory, which is seen from the archaeological materials being recovered in this region. Among these were the balangay boats, which is so far the earliest found in the Philippines, and the famous Golden Tara, which is now housed at the Chicago Field Museum. Deciphering the inscription in the silver strip might shed more light on the history of Butuan and perhaps its relationship as well with other regions in the Philippine archipelago and the rest of Southeast Asia.
The four artifacts recovered in the Philippines clearly demonstrate how long the history of Filipino literacy was. It definitely shows that our ancestors have already been knowledgeable in reading and writing way earlier than what we knew from our history textbooks. Not just that, we have actually learned to write first in foreign scripts like Kawi even before we developed our own system of writing. Filipino literacy through baybayin, as a matter of fact, has been among those aspects of our culture that amazed the Spanish when they arrived on our shores. One of the Spanish chroniclers actually described the early Filipinos as '...so given to reading and writing that there is hardly a man, and much less a woman, who does not read and write in the letters of the island of Manila' (referring to baybayin)!
Our history teaches us of what we are capable of back then. Our national hero Jose Rizal was actually so inspired when he learned that our ancestors can read and write that he used it to argue against the Western misconception of Filipinos; stating that even before we are almost as civilized as our Spanish conquerors because of such rich culture that we possess.
And now through these archaeological discoveries, including the much recent Ticao stone, we even learned that our ABC is much older than we think...
