A Glimpse of The Museo Sugbo w/ the Pre-Colonial Gallery

Museo Sugbo is  housed at what once called Carcel de Cebu, a provincial jail of Cebu.

 "A GLIMPSE OF THE MUSEO SUGBO W/ THE PRE-COLONIAL GALLERY"

Designed in 1869 by Domingo de Escodrillas, the lone arcithect in Cebu at that time, the Carcel de Cebu was originally proposed as the Carcel del Distrito, the main prison or the Visayas District. This accounts for its relatively large size at that time it was built. After a flurry of endorsements and independent review in Manila, the project was approved and construction commence                d on 1870. It is believed that most of the coral stone blocks from the Parian Church which was ordered closed by the Bishop after winning a long-drawn court case against its parishioners in the 1850's were used to built part of the Carcel. After over twenty years of used, a renovation was ordered in 1892.

Records are not clear as to when the second storey of the main building was added. But the architectural designs suggest this to be during the American Colonial Period.

The Carcel de Cebu housed not only criminals on its 135-year history. During the early years of the American period, the Carcel served as a stable for horses competing in the Hippodromo nearby.But it was eventually once again as a prison. After Liberation, all of the Cebuano collaborators and spies for the Japanese were incarcerated here.

The Carcel changed names twice, first during the American to the post-War periods when it was called the Cebu Provicial Jail.  Between 1945 and 1976, to the buildings on its frontage were used as Cebu City Jail. With the departure of the city jail, the Cebu provincial jail changed its name to the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center(CPDRC).

The transfer of CPDRC to a more spacious and modern prison complex on December 27, 2004 has occasioned the conversion of the Carcel de Cebu by Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia fittingly into Museo Sugbo the repository of Cebuano Heritage. 

 So here are the parts that completes the history of the prominent Museo Sugbo;

This is the entrance of the Museo Sugbo wherein they welcome guest that is interested upon the history of the Philippines especially in the city where the Museo is standing. Actually there are two ancient bombs in the both sides in the entrance however sad to say I can't show you what the bomb actually looks like because it is not shown in the picture.

 

  After the main entrance you will see two doors that is made of wood and they are facing each other. At the left side is where you can see the room that is named the PRE-COLONIAL GALLERY. What's in the Pre-Colonial Gallery are the things or the artifacts rather that exist by that period.

The other door is named the Spanish Colonial Gallery wherein it also contains artifacts coming from that period.

There is also a room in the Museo Sugbo that is full of the things that the late Vicente Rama that deals with his contribution to the society. The room was named as POLITICS AND PUBLISHING: THE VICENTE RAMA MEMORABILIA.

There is also a room that is full of the memorabilia of the the two persons who amidst the war. The room was entitled AMIDST TWO WARS: THE GREGORIO ABELLANA AND JOVITO ABELLANA MEMORABILIA.

The Museo Sugbo also features the Rice Gods and Saints by The Therese Hermosisima Finnegan Collection.

The center of the Museo Sugbo is an open area wherein you can see some bench that you can use if you want to rest and also one of those bench is a wood representation of the name of Museo Sugbo.

This mini monument here in Museo Sugbo was created to ackowledge Leo Tolstov.

One of the rooms in the Museo Sugbo was named as the National Archives Of The Philippines.

There are two rooms that was named the NATIONAL HISTORICAL COMMISSION OF THE PHILIPPINES.

If you are tired wondering around you can sit and relax in the Museo Sugbo by drinking a coffee in the 1871 CELDA CAFE.

If you want to have a crafted things, no need to go somewhere because there is already a shop of crafted things inside the Museo Sugbo and the shop was named CRAFTED TRAITS.

If you don't like crafted things the Museo Sugbo can give you a choice because they are now opening a SOUVENIR SHOP. A souvenir shop contains key chains, bracelets and many more things that usually embroided with the name of the Museo.

  "THE PRE-COLONIAL GALLERY"

The Pre-Colonial Gallery contains artifacts which are excavated in different places  but all  of it was from the Pre-Colonial Period.

Here are all the artifacts inside the Pre-Colonial Gallery:

1. Chinese celadonwares, noted for their luscious greenish glaze from the early Ming Dynasty period probably 1400s. From burials in Argao and Liloan.

2. This is a Japanese photograph of the earthen wares wherein the picture shows the traditional way of the Cebuano's burial. It includes an earthen ware because those earthen wares pertains to a particular things like a porcelain bowl that the died owns and apparently those earthen wares will be put together with the body of the died person.

  

3. Fragments of what must have been a large celadon with incised flower design on the medallion. Surface find from a location in the Liloan Cebu.

4.  Boat-shaped coffins used for re-interment, reburial  or secondary burial. The Pre-Colonial Cebuano, like many other groups of Southeast Asia believed that the soul traveled to the heavens on a boat at specific time after death.

5. Millet (Kabog) , commonly cultivated in the Northern parts of Cebu. 

The Barili Finds 

In mid-January 2009 , a team of archaeologists  and cavers investigated a cave in Brgy. Dakit Barili reported  by cave explorers to contain broken earthenware potteries and human skeletal fragments.

The specimens displayed here (decorated or each nims and bodies) constitutes the finds which point the Metal Age , a period marked by the use of iron tools and plenty of decorated earthenware as burial accompaniments .

6. Metal Age Earthenware Fragments (ca 1500   B.C.E. - 900 C.E) Recovered from a Cave in Barili, Southwestern Cebu.

 7. Metal Age earthenware fragments recovered from a looted site in Barangay Mactang Poro, Camotes island in2004.

THE BANTAYAN FINDS 

ARTIFACTS FROM RECENT EXCAVATIONS AND LOOTING OF BURIAL SITES IN BANTAYAN.

 

 8. Clay net sinkers, a common burial accompaniment for those living in coastal settlements.

9. Earthenware pottery with incised designs.

10. Various types of iron tools recovered from burial sites.

11. A mini-model of a Filipino house. The natives in the pre-colonial times, preferred to live near shorelines for subsistence and trading. Thus, most houses stood in stilts to protect them from high tide. There are also houses built in dry lands that are raised by stilts because the underneath is used as storage area. Today this type of housing still remains.

12. Shards of Flint Stones believed to be tools used during the Neolithic Period (10200 B.C.- 2500 B.C.) although these were recovered in the UK, these stones also displayed in this gallery that were found in Cebu. This somehow tell us that people in the Stone Age, in the most parts of the world, relied on these stone implements to cut meat and scrape tools.

 

In addition because of the dearth of written documents prior to the coming of the Spanish archaeology the systematic excavation of the materials remains of the past is the most useful way to know the time before Magellan landed. And in  the Archaeological Time they also tackled about the traditional way of burial of the Cebuano's and that is by covering the body of the dead person by a soil together with their important things and it has been said that if the both hands of the dead person is in its shoulder therefore the body is a male and if its both hands is covering its private part then its a female.

The Evidence of the Chinese Trade in Cebu is the Chinese trade ware ceramics dating from the Sung Dynasty and Yung dynasty. 

Also Cebu before is rich of gold wherein at that time because they did not know the value of the gold they do the barter trading by they will give the gold in exchange of a nail.