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Friday, 19th December 2008 (1784 views)

The National Museum of the Philippines has opened a new exhibition of artefacts at Fort San Pedro in Cebu City that includes a gold death mask found under the Plaza Independencia.

Discovered under a subway tunnel being built in the city, the death mask was found with the remains of a high-ranking pre-Spanish settler, Cebu Daily News reports.

Crafted from very thin gold, the mask is in three pieces to cover the eyes nose and mouth and may have been placed on the body of a chieftain.

A number of other artefacts were also found at the site of the tunnel, including a dagger, fragments of other gold masks and large ceramic items.

"We found a death mask of a chieftain or head of a tribe and some pre-Spanish ceramic trade ware," Boomboom Miano, Fort San Pedro Museum curator, stated when the discovery was made.

Writing for the newspaper, Jobers Bersales also revealed that excavations at the old pueblo of Argao in the Philippines had unearthed a "small piece of elaborately-chased gold earring" dating from the late Spanish period.

 

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