For my first post in the Philippine History Blog I will feature the Golden Tara of Agusan. I saw this artifact in the Grainger Hall of Gems in Field Museum, in Chicago, Illinois, which I visited last March 2013.
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| Reverse of the statue |
This artifact, which was dated to early 13th century, is considered the one of the most significant discoveries in Philippine archaeology. It was discovered in 1917 by a Manobo woman named Bilay Ocampo , in the bank of a river in Esperanza, Agusan.
Made of 21-karat gold and weighing four pounds, the statue depicts a Malay-Hindu goddess sitting cross-legged. Her body were ornamented and on her head was a kind of a headdress.
Ownership of the statue passed from one person to another until it was purchased for 4,000 pesos by the wife of the American Governor-General Leonard Wood, Faye Cooper-Cole, who was the curator of the Field Museum who brought it to the Field Museum in the United States.
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