It looks like the limestone burial jars of Kulaman Plateau have also been Down Under. While googling for some information on the artifacts, I came upon the website of the National Gallery of Australia and read an article on one of its exhibits three years ago. The title of the exhibit was "Life, Death and Magic: 2,000 Years of Southeast Asian Ancestral Art," and Kulaman burial jars were among the items displayed.
The exhibit ran from August 31 to October 31, 2010, and as the feature on the Kulaman burial jars states, the artifacts were lent by the Ayala Museum in Makati. The photographed jars seem to be the same objects the museum lent this year for an exhibit in Paris showcasing pre-Spanish Philippine artifacts. Perhaps it is not a bad thing that this group of jars came to the possession of the Ayala Museum. The institution seems to be genuine in its purpose to promote and preserve Philippine arts and culture. I wonder now which other parts of the world the collection has been to. Maybe I should email the museum's curator about this.
Back to the exhibit in Australia, I like the short text accompanying the jar's image. It succinctly states almost everything you need to know about Kulaman burial jars. It mentions in the last sentence that the covers of the jars are "phallic," and I'm wondering if this was done on purpose or not. It's going to be the topic of a future post in this blog. For the meantime, here's the complete text from the website:
Many ancient limestone jars were discovered in burial caves in the Cotabatu [sic] region of southern Mindanao. Too small to hold a body, they were used for the secondary burial rites still widely practised in Southeast Asian communities. In these rites to honour the dead, the bones are exhumed and ritually cleaned, then laid to rest in superbly crafted vessels. The surfaces of the jars feature geometric and spiral patterns. The lids take human form, with a phallic head or upper torso and extended arms.
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