The Butuan Silver Palaeograph, also known as the Butuan Silver Strip, is a piece of

metal A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typicall ...

with inscriptions found in

Butuan Butuan (pronounced ), officially the City of Butuan ( ceb, Dakbayan sa Butuan; Butuanon: ''Dakbayan hong Butuan''; fil, Lungsod ng Butuan), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the region of Caraga, Philippines. It is the ''de facto'' c ...

, Agusan province in mid-1970s by a team of archaeologists from the National Museum of the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. Treasure hunters who were looking for old

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

s and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

ornaments discovered this metal strip inside a wooden coffin. Coffins of the same type, dating back to the 14th and 15th centuries, were found at the site. According to Jesus Peralta, found inside were human remains with artificially deformed

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, th ...

s - a practice in this region limited to Southern Philippines and unpopular in

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

. Due to the similarities found between the coffins, it is reasonable for archaeologists to assume that the latter came from that same era. Debate, however, arose regarding the origin of the said artifact, but until now, it is considered to belong to Butuan where it was found. Boechari of

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

, said Peralta, identified the writings as very close to a Javanese script that existed from the 12th to the 15th century. This yet-to-be-deciphered Butuan palaeograph is now in the hands of Proceso Gonzales, the city engineer of Butuan.

References

1970s archaeological discoveries Archaeological artifacts Archaeology of the Philippines Butuan History of Agusan del Norte Inscriptions in undeciphered writing systems Philippine scripts {{asia-archaeology-stub