NAGA CITY -- As centerpiece of Dr. Ermelo Almeda’s collection at the Museo de Concilliar de Naga here, a burial-urn cover is said to confirm the Ibalon epic of Bicol that Spanish friars recorded and translated into Spanish language in the late 1800s, according to a study of a Filipino anthropologist.

        Decorated with enigmatic design and several figures, the 32-centimeter round burial-urn cover is a composition that tells a story conveyed through varying figures placed around a pyramid-like center figure.

        Prof. Zeus Salazar, the anthropologist who claimed in his book he first exposed the “Tasaday Hoax” in the 1970s, has studied the details of the burial-urn cover using pictures taken through macro lens and interpreted the figures to be characters and creatures of Ibalon epic.

        The Palimbangan ng Lahi published Salazar’s Filipino- language written study of the burial-urn cover in 2004 as a book titled “Liktao at Epiko, Ang Takip ng Tapayang Libingan ng Libmanan, Camarines Sur.”

        Salazar, a summa cum laude A.B. History graduate of the University of the Philippines and Docteur en Ethnologie of Sorborne, Université de Paris, identified the details and meaning of the figures using lines from the Ibalon epic.

        The professor considers Ibalon epic not a real ethno-epic thing strictly speaking, which he said must be a living tradition intertwined with people’s beliefs and religious practices like the Darangen of the Maranaws, Ulahingan of the Manobos and Olaging of the province of Bukidnon.

        Salazar traced the publisher of the “fragmented” five-part Ibalon epic to Spanish Friar Jose Castaño in the 1800s and ascertained another friar, Fr. Bernardino Melendreras, to have written it in Spanish making use of a European literary form in one part. But he finds the other four parts of the epic “more authentic”.

        Curator Fabie Arejola claimed the burial-urn cover, unearthed in 1982 in Bigaho, Limanan, Camarines Sur had been speculated by some historical buffs to be probably the burial urn of Handiong himself, the main protagonist of Ibalon epic.

        In the Ibalon epic, Handiong was the king of Libmanan who sent 1,000 warriors under the leadership of Bantong to kill half-man, half-beast giant monster Rabot. Bantong slew Rabot while asleep in a cave dwelling.

        The epic narrates that Handiong and his warriors came to Ibalon (Spanish colonizers once called Bicol as Tierra de Ybalon) to “clear” the place and start planting but he was challenged by a serpent called Uryol who later became a close ally in building the civilization in the region.

        Arejola did not know how old the piece is because it has yet to be carbondated. She said several experts have already examined and concluded it is prehistoric and authentic even though others remain skeptic.

        Salazar believed it belonged to the pre-Hispanic period, before the porcelain period towards the period when the inhabitants of the archipelago started relating to their Indo-Malayan neighbors.

        The professor compared and correlated the designs and contents of burial urn to other similar artifacts found elsewhere in the Philippines to arrive at a period of the burial-urn cover. He asserted the period it was crafted could be narrowed down between 5000 B.C. and 10 A.D.

        Probing the authenticity of the burial-urn cover, he traced its source from either the villages of Poro or Bigaho in Libmanan town, the places Almeda’s driver said they frequented to buy artifacts in the 1980s. The artifacts collector died in 1998 and left no catalogue of the large collection he bought around and outside the country, from fossilized dinosaur eggs to Stone Age instruments to Chinese porcelain wares.

        Salazar said Poro and Bigaho were two places in Bicol that 19th century German-Russian Ethnologist Fedor Jagor mentioned in archeological terms where artifacts with human remains, deer horns, plates and pots were unearthed during road constructions. He added Jagor explored the region in 1851.

        Some National Museum officials consulted on the burial-urn cover have doubts on the authenticity of the piece. It was bought from artifacts digger and its discovery was not in situ, i.e., the piece must be discovered following scientific methods of archeology.

        Dr. Jesus J. Peralta, retired anthropologist and archeologist of the National Museum, wrote that “the burial urn with ‘minarette-like cover with incised designs’ was bought from a vendor, so that it cannot be ascertained where it came from which was more likely Mindanao”.

        But Salazar said the absence of scientific archeological process could be satisfied by the process of topologically comparing and correlating a piece in question to pieces discovered in situ.

        He cited the National Museum’s burial urn with conical cover excavated from Calatagan, Batangas as one example of an authentic piece obtained not in situ. He said the National Museum even declared the Calatagan burial urn a national treasure to be the “first artifact…to contain evidence of ancient Philippine writing”.

        Discerning meanings from the figures and the tableau on the surface of the burial-urn cover, Salazar followed the three triangular divisions joined by a central pyramid-like figure in the middle. Each triangular division contains figures that he interpreted to be characters of the Ibalon epic or depiction of people’s life of the pre-Hispanic Bicol.

        Salazar named the triangular divisions as “Ang Tatsulok ng Bungo”, “Ang Tatsulok ng Araw” and “Ang Tatsulok ng Bibig” based on the differentiating figure in each of the three sides of the tower-like structure and interpreted them as episodes of the Ibalon epic.

        The side of the “Ang Tatsulok ng Bungo” comprised of miniature head-like figure that the professor sees to be a skull, explaining that it lacked features to represent a human head like hair, discernable face, teeth, ears while its discernable eyes are mere points. A container before the skull with two elongated figures on it he interpreted as an attempt to depict ritual offering to the ancestors practiced by pre-Hispanic Filipinos.

        In the side of the “Tatsulok ng Araw”, Salazar inventoried the figures on it comprising of a carabao and sun representation with at least 21 discernable rays drawn on one side of the central tower-like figure and four “points” on the surface on the right side of the carabao figure, that he surmised to be indications of figures lost. He explained the scene appropriately reflects the prehistoric time because he said the carabao has no nose ring and there is no plow on it. He added the Spanish colonizers brought the use of plow.

        He considers the “Tatsulok ng Bibig” on the left side of the “Tatsulok ng Araw” the most complete composition. In this triangular division, he identified as a crawling human figure holding on the right hand a crocodile, another human figure who seemed to be kneeling and head towards the mouth-like opening, two deer-like figures another animal-like figure.

        Salazar interpreted the “Tatsulok ng Bibig” represents an episode in the Ibalon epic wherein Handiong consults the serpent Uryol. The mouth-like opening he said is actually a cave opening and the protrusion that looked like a tongue is a serpent and the kneeling figure is Handiong.