Wednesday, September 24, 2008 Artifacts found in tunnel construction site
SOME pre-Spanish period artifacts like ceramics and skeletons dug up from the tunnel construction site at the Plaza Independencia area were turned over to National Museum representatives yesterday.
Several pieces of earthenware, stoneware, porcelain items, four skulls and other skeletons were dug up from the construction site in the past weeks.
But museum curators lamented that most of the artifacts might no longer be as valuable as they want them to be because of the current state they are in.
Most of them are already broken into many pieces because of the heavy equipment and were not properly documented, which diminishes its significance, said Ederick Miano, officer-in-charge of the National Museum branch in Fort San Pedro in Cebu City.
Settlements
“This is significant to Cebuano heritage because it traces the pre-Spanish settlements in this part of the city,” he said.
Experts from the archeology division of the National Museum are expected in Cebu next week to document and study the artifacts. They will be brought to the head office in Manila for documentation and will be returned to Cebu City for public viewing.
In a meeting yesterday with the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) and the contractor of the tunnel, Kajima Construction Corp., it was agreed that all artifacts that will be recovered in the future will be turned over to the National Museum for proper documentation.
In the same meeting, Kajima also assured National Museum representatives that reports of their security guards and construction workers selling some artifacts are not true.
“They told us that it’s not true and that whatever they will recover will be turned over to the National Museum immediately. Unfortunately, what has been recovered are broken pieces because this is a disturbed site, although there are a few pieces that are still intact,” said Malou Samson, curator of the University of San Carlos (USC) museum.
Archaeology
Samson represents the National Museum Manila in all archaeological diggings and salvage excavation in Cebu.
“Sayang gyud, if there was earlier intervention by experts, these things could have been saved. So now there is an agreement that whatever they recover, they are not supposed to touch anything. They should inform us and take a photo of the artifact for documentation because it will no longer be of use if there is no documentation,” she told Sun.Star Cebu.
Skeletons were first dug up underneath Plaza Independencia during the early stages of the tunnel construction in 2006. But it was only last Aug. 28 when earthenware and stoneware were found.
The artifacts date back to the pre-Spanish and Spanish times, or at least 150 years ago.
With only two-thirds of the construction covered by digging activities, Miano and Samson are optimistic that more will be recovered from the site.
“It has been proven in previous excavations that Plaza Independencia is a probable pre-Spanish and Spanish period settlement and there are a lot of artifacts there. We will closely look at the diggings in the remaining one-third of the construction site, in the hope that we will find more,” said Samson. (LCR)
