Jar Covers in USC Museum

Like what Marcelino Maceda did in his article in the journal Anthropos, I’m going to list here some burial jar covers and their respective descriptions. My original plan was to compare the list in Maceda’s article and the displayed items in the University of San Carlos Museum. Maceda selected thirty-five jar covers to include in the paper, and the university museum only has twenty-one now in its collection. I wanted to know which of the twenty-one were included in the thirty-five. The task, however, was headache-inducing. I decided to do the comparison some other time and focus instead on the museum collection.

Unlike what Maceda did, I can’t give you exact measurements of the jar covers. I’m basing my descriptions on the photos that I took more than three years ago. I assigned numbers on the artifacts based on how they were displayed when I took the photos. Two of the covers still serve their purpose because the jars they were made for have survived. I numbered the two last. Jar Cover No. 21 is shown in the second and third photo below, but I can’t put a number on it because the number icons in PhotoScape, the photo-editing software I used, are up to 20 only.

1—This is round and flat.
2—This is shaped like a gable and rectangular at the base.
3—This is shaped like an inverted bowl and decorated with honeycomb figures from the base to the top.
4—This is round and flat at the base, on which stands a phallus.
5—This is round and thick at the base, on which stands a short pole. The pole is decorated with honeycomb figures.
6—This is circular, squat, and shaped like a stopper for a bottle.
7—This is round and thick at the base, on which stands a short pole that is phallic at the top.
8—This looks like a bust, but the head is shaped like a diamond. On the chest, two tiny arms are carved. The arms look as though the person is touching his her heart.
9—This is shaped like an inverted bowl at the base and phallic from the middle to the top. Eyes, nose, and ears are carved on the glans penis.
10—This is shaped like an inverted bowl at the base. Two legs are carved on the base, and there’s a tiny protrusion between them, probably representing a penis. The base extends upward into a short pole, which is broken. The figure attached on top of the pole may be from another specimen because its color is not same. The figure is shaped like a neck and a head of a human being, with excavated eyes, ears, and mouth.
11—This is a bust of a man. The base is circular and shaped like an inverted bowl. The arms of the figure are embossed and form a semicircle. Three straight grooves run from the neck of the figure to the edge of the base. The head looks like a real person, with the eyes and mouth excavated and the nose and ears embossed.
12—This is a pyramid but has a circular base.
13—This is shaped like a standing human being, but the legs are merely carved on the base, which looks like an inverted bowl. The figure is as humanlike as a doll, but the left arm is missing.
14—This is flat and circular at the base, which supports a figure of a person’s upper body. The frontal part of the figure appears to have crumbled.
15—This looks like an elongated gable. On one side is an embossed outline of a human body, but the arms and legs stretch outward before curving down. The fingers and toes are large and long.
16—This is circular and nearly flat at the base, which supports a short pole that slightly goes smaller in circumference as it goes higher. A ropelike protrusion goes around the pole in the middle, making the pole look as though it has two layers. Spiral flutings decorate the base, and vertical flutings decorate the pole.
17—This is circular and thick yet flat at the base. Jutting from the base is a short knob that goes wider as it goes higher. Simple straight flutings decorate the sides of the knob and the top surface of the base.
18—This is round and flat at the base, which supports a large figure of a neck and a man’s head. The eyes, the holes of the nose, and the mouth are excavated, and the ears are slightly embossed.
19—This is shaped like a gable and nearly square at the base. The diamond-like cut at the top of the gable is probably a yoni.
20—This is shaped like a gable. On one side, it has a figure of a human being that resembles a lizard. The figure has a tail, and the arms and legs are splayed out. The head has holes representing eyes and a mouth. I don’t have a good photo of the other side of the lid, but according to Maceda’s journal article, the other side has a similar figure but without a tail.
21—This is square, thin, and flat at the base, which supports a short pole with a glans penis at the top. The glans penis has holes that represent a person’s eyes, nostrils, and mouth. Arms that look like limbs of a lizard are carved from just below the glans penis down to the length of the pole and the top surface of the base until they reach the edge.