Balangay Shrine Museum

In the 1970s, treasure hunters and then archaeologists began uncovering wooden boats buried in the waterlogged soil at Libertad in Butuan, and what came out changed the picture of the pre-colonial Philippines: plank-built vessels joined edge to edge with wooden dowels and lashed to the frame, dated by modern radiocarbon tests to between about 689 and 988 CE, alongside imported Chinese and Southeast Asian ceramics, gold and metalwork indicating a trading settlement of real significance long before the Spanish arrived. Several balangay have been excavated; some remain in the ground, and the shrine museum is built over the site so that one is displayed in situ in its excavation pit, with others and a display of associated finds nearby. The word balangay is the root of barangay, the smallest unit of Philippine local government - a boat's crew becoming a community. Butuan's National Museum branch in the city centre covers the wider archaeology.

History

Locals searching for alluvial gold near the Masao River found nine wooden boats in the late 1970s, in an old dried-up river channel at Sitio Ambangan, Barrio Libertad, and at least eleven are now known - the largest concentration of lashed-lug boat remains of the Austronesian tradition. Early radiocarbon results, from the 4th to the 13th century CE, were too scattered to trust for one site, and accelerator mass spectrometry later dated the boats tested to between about 689 and 988 CE. The shrine was built in 1979 on land donated by Felix A. Luna, a local resident, and on 9 March 1987 President Corazon Aquino declared the boats National Cultural Treasures. In 2009 the Kaya ng Pinoy team, who had climbed Everest in 2006, began building replica balangays, which sailed around Southeast Asia in 2010-2011 (Wikipedia, Balangay).

What to look for

• The boat in situ - a balangay displayed in its excavation pit.
• The plank construction - dowelled and lashed hull technique.
• The trade goods - ceramics and metalwork from the site.
• The site context - the waterlogged ground that preserved them.

When to go

Year-round; weekday hours. The museum is a National Museum branch and closes on Mondays and holidays - confirm before travelling.

Things to know

It is small and the presentation is modest. Some boats remain unexcavated in the ground. The site is a short ride from central Butuan, and there is little else immediately around it.

Nearby

The National Museum branch in Butuan city centre is close; the Agusan Marsh is south, and Surigao's coast is east.