Painting and design

• Paintings and designs were discovered in the Philippines even before the arrival of the Spaniards
• Types of pre-colonial Philippine art

  • Petrographs
  • Masks
  • Jewelries
• Petrographs


  • Charcoal drawings on cave walls in Penablanca, Cagayan Province and the Singnapan Caves in southern Palawan
  • Red hematite prints in Anda Peninsula, Bohol Province
• Dating of the petrographs is still unknown
• Masks


  Used for the dead
• Gold ornaments for the dead

  • Delicately worked sheets of gold covering the face of the corpse
  • Gold burial mask found in Masao, Butuan, Agusan del Norte
• Jewelries


  Gold was used
• Kamagi


  • 12 necklaces strung together into nearly 15-foot-long chain punctuated by small, colored stones
  • Kasikas, a necklace dated from the 10th-13th century from Surigao del Sur
• Types of pre-colonial Philippine earrings

  • Panika
  • Kayong-kayong
  • Uod
• Panika


  Rings and plugs worn in the lower hole of the earlobe
• Other pre-colonial Philippine gold accessories


  • Belts
  • Sashes, such as the Surigao Sacred Thread
• The Surigao Sacred Thread is the only one of its kind physically made and found in the Philippines