Provenance: Provenance: Private Collection, Manila

ABOUT THE WORK

Archaeological finds and various texts attest to the abundant supply of gold in the Southeast Asian islands. Gold was valued not only as adornment, but also as currency. In 1947, American professor Charles Boxer acquired a sixteenth-century Spanish manuscript that described Asian customs and peoples, with several pages devoted to the Philippines, known as the Boxer Codex. Here, one can confirm that affluent men and women in ancient Butuan, for example, wore gold adornment pieces that signify both wealth and high ranks. Ear ornaments, specifically, were worn in many ways—worn through the holes in the lobes, attached to the cartilage like cuffs, or fitted inside distended earlobes. The slit loops recovered from Mindoro and Cebu were hammered and usually hollow inside, and some display spiral patterns or granulation with intriguing mammary forms near the slit. This particular slit loop was recovered from Agusan.