In March Katie, Ryne and I headed into Manila to check out the second of the National Museums - The National Museum of Anthropology. It is housed in a newly renovated building on the edge of Rizal Park it was formerly the Department of Finance. The colonial style building makes for an impressive location for the Anthropology Museum.
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| The foyer of the National Anthropology Museum |
We wove our way through three floors of exhibits. And as with the last time I was in one of the National Museums I found myself more interested in the exhibits at the top level, and wished we had started there before getting that overloaded feeling. The two things that stand out to me was how fascinated I was by the rice exhibit (really, rice!) which displayed tools and rice field guardians among other things.
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| Rice field guardians |
There was also an interesting exhibit on artefacts recovered from the San Diego ship which sunk outside of Fortune Island in 1600. Interestingly it was a trading vessel that had been retrofitted with cannons as a warship. It was ill prepared to handle the extra weight and sunk because the cannon port holes ended up below water level. In 1992 the wreck was discovered and over 34,000 artefacts were recovered, many of which are on display in the museum. My favourite included a nice selection of the different types of stoneware jars.
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| Stoneware jars recovered from the shipwreck San Diego |
There were other treasures in different exhibition halls. Weaving from different regions of the Philippines. Musical instruments. Woven rattan balls used to play sipa. Burial containers. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. It was a cross section of Filipino culture and quite an informative visit.
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| Burial jar |
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