Ancient pot: A National Treasure

Something will never be part of the history if it is not uncover. The discovery of something from the
past, can give us a glimpse of what our ancestors's life used to be.

Calatagan pot, is a prehispanic (14th- 16th) artifact with ancient inscriptions at the neck of it. It was
found ib Talisay, Batangas in 1958 and was declared as National Treasure in 1961.

The unearthing of the historical pot was because of the Zobel family. The local diggers which was
authorized by the Zobel found it in an archeological site in Calatagan as they were working on a nearby
excavation. They sold it for P6 to a certain Alfredo Evangelista but later, the Anthropological Foundation
of the Philippines purchased the pot and donated it in 1961 to the National Museum, where it is
displayed to this day.

Meanwhile, several people attemted to decipher the text inscribed around the shoulder of the famous
Calatagan pot. Some people who tried their best in decoding it are the National Artist for Sculpture
Guillermo Tolentino which his translation was very uncertain because of the method he used. He
claimed to have contacted the spirits of some National Heroes, Spanish friars and even a Javanese spirit
just to translate the inscriptions. The result of the verse sounds like a Tagalog prayer for the dead. It is
also almost the same with the findings of Ramon Guillermo and Myfel Paluga of University of the
Philippines which also appears to be a prayer or blessing for the dead, the only difference is that they
use the combination of paleography, cryptography and "brute force." Othe translation was made by
Quintin Fortich Oropilla, saying it should be read in the opposite direction and in Pangasinense language
and other local and international scholars, French linguist Jean Paul Potet, anthropologist Antoon
Postma and paleographers Juan Francisco and Johannes de Casparis but they failed at decoding the
inscriptions.

However, after 50 years, Rolando Borrinaga is the latest person to offer a translation of the script which
is said to be based on old Bisayan and and old Tagalog alphabets which is called as 'Baybayin.'

Baybayin is an ancient pre-colonial Philippine writing system.The term Baybay literally means "to spell"
in Tagalog.

At present time, the Baybayin that was inscribed in the cultural treasure pot has been continously
promoted by the Zobel family through a lecture series. The teaching series was held last October 5, 2018
at the Museo Enrique Zobel which aimed to introduced to the Calataguenos how it is written and
spoken and for them to understand.

Truly, the discovery of the Calatagan pot is something to be proud of especially the Calataguenos. With
the greatest contribution of the Zobel family in continous preservation of the historical pot, Calatagan's
history will never be forgotten as time pass by.