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The Butuan Ivory Seal or BIS is an ivory stamp or seal stamp or a
The Butuan Ivory Seal or BIS is an ivory stamp or seal stamp or a privy seal
A privy seal refers to the personal seal of a reigning monarch, used for the purpose of authenticating official documents of a much more personal nature. This is in contrast with that of a great seal, which is used for documents of greater impor ...
associated with a Rhinoceros Ivory Tusk , dated 9th–12th century, was found in Libertad, 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 ...
in Agusan del Norte
Agusan del Norte, officially the Province of Agusan del Norte ( ceb, Amihanang Agusan; Butuanon: ''Probinsya hong Agusan del Norte''; tl, Hilagang Agusan), is a province in the Caraga region of the Philippines. Its capital is the city of Cabadb ...
in southern 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 ...
. Inscribed on the seal is the word ''Butban'' in stylized Kawi. ''Butban'' was presumed to stand for Butuan. The ivory seal is now housed at the National Museum of the Philippines
The National Museum of the Philippines ( fil, Pambansang Museo ng Pilipinas}) is an umbrella government organization that oversees a number of national museums in the Philippines including ethnographic, anthropological, archaeological, and vis ...
.
Discovery
Another archaeological piece with ancient inscription, the Butuan Ivory Seal was recovered in the 1970s by pot hunters in a prehistoric shell midden site in Ambangan, Libertad, Butuan City in Agusan del Norte. Made of ivory, the object could have been used to stamp documents orgoods
In economics, goods are items that satisfy human wants
and provide utility, for example, to a consumer making a purchase of a satisfying product. A common distinction is made between goods which are transferable, and services, which are not ...
during trading.
The ivory seal as well as other archaeological materials recovered in Ambangan archaeological sites are proof that Rajahnate of Butuan
Butuan also called the Butan Rajanate and the Kingdom of Butuan (; Butuanon: ; ; ) was a precolonial Philippine polity centred on the northern Mindanao island in the modern city of Butuan in what is now the southern Philippines. It was known f ...
was an important trading center whose official seal marked the source of commodities it produced and exported.
The innovation of substitution of phoneme /b/ with /w/ and sandhi of /wa/ equal of /u/ followed by /a/ can be found in Javanese, thus the block uTba] -related to Butwan and later Butuan.
Dating
Dated 1002 A.D., the seal could have been used for documentation in trading, Butuan was the center of trade and commerce in North easternMindanao
Mindanao ( ) ( Jawi: مينداناو) is the second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the island is part of an island group of ...
since 10th century.
There were other notable discoveries like the Ivory Seal and the Silver Paleograph, Gold and tools for gold processing of ornaments have also been recovered from a village site Over a hundred clay crucibles and tools for the processing of gold items were discovered in the area, leading to the conclusion that an extensive gold ornaments industry was located in these areas as far back as a thousand years ago. Altogether, these data demonstrate that Butuan was a thriving international trading port a thousand years ago. This site has a tremendous historical impact in the Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an are ...
n region.
See also
*Kawi script
The Kawi or or Old Javanese script is a Brahmic script found primarily in Java and used across much of Maritime Southeast Asia between the 8th century and the 16th century.Aditya Bayu Perdana and Ilham Nurwansah 2020Proposal to encode Kawi/ ...
, the writing system used in the Butuan ivory seal;
* Rajahnate of Butuan
Butuan also called the Butan Rajanate and the Kingdom of Butuan (; Butuanon: ; ; ) was a precolonial Philippine polity centred on the northern Mindanao island in the modern city of Butuan in what is now the southern Philippines. It was known f ...
, the historical polity related to the Butuan ivory seal;
* Butuan Silver Paleograph, a similar artifact with a still-undeciphered script;
* Golden Tara
__NOTOC__
The Agusan image (commonly referred to in the Philippines as the Golden Tara in allusion to its supposed, but disputed, identity as an image of a Buddhist Tara) is a , 21-karat gold statuette, found in 1917 on the banks of the Wawa Ri ...
, another artifact from precolonial Butuan;
References
{{Asia in topic, Hinduism in Hinduism in the Philippines 1002 in Asia History of the Philippines (900–1565) Philippine scripts Malay inscriptions Collections of the National Museum of the Philippines Butuan 1002 works Ivory works of art 1970 archaeological discoveries