Angono Petroglyphs

ANGONO PETROLGLYPHS

The Angono Petroglyphs Site Museum is situated at the municipality of Binangonan, province of Rizal, three and a half kilometers southeast of the town of Angono. It was discovered in 1965 by National Artist, Carlos “Botong” Francisco during a field trip with a troop of boy scouts. He reported to the National Museum the existence of a cave with drawings of a primitive quality.

In October 1965, a National Museum interdisciplinary research team headed by archaeologist Alfredo Evangelista recovered four stone tools from the site. Subsequent excavations in the cave and its vicinities also yielded fragments of earthenware, obsidian flakes and shells. Jesus Peralta, an anthropologist and former Assistant Director of the National Museum, brought the Angono Petroglyphs to the public’s attention through his research. To heighten consciousness on the cultural value of the site, the National Museum in 1998, established a museum showcasing the cultural and artistic heritage of the province of Rizal. 

On a small rock wall a short drive from Metro Manila, enigmatic carvings that are believed to date back 5,000 years are in danger of disappearing before their mysteries can be solved.

The 127 engravings of people, animals and geometric shapes are the Philippines' oldest known artworks, but encroaching urbanization, vandals and the ravages of nature are growing threats.

"Eventually they will disappear... preservation is out of the question," veteran anthropologist Jesus Peralta, who did an extensive and widely respected study of the carvings in the 1970s, told AFP.

The artworks have been declared a national treasure, regarded as the best proof that relatively sophisticated societies existed in the Philippines in the Stone Age.

"They show that in ancient times, the Philippines did have a complex culture. It's a recording of our ancestors," said Leo Batoon, a senior researcher of the National Museum.

Museum scientists believe the carvings date back to 3000 BC, based on carving tools and pottery shards discovered at the site, indicating they originated before the use of metal tools.

This makes them far older than the country's second oldest known artworks, a series of geometric shapes in the mountainous northern Philippines that are believed to date to 1500 BC, according to Batoon.