Barang King Banga: Isang Experimental na Pagbasang Bisaya sa Inskripsyon sa Banga ng Calatagan

Abstract

The Calatagan Pot, with an inscription around its rim, is one of the very few existing archeological evidences of ancient writing in the Philippines. It was discovered in Calatagan, Batangas under uncontrolled conditions and bought by the Philippine National Museum in 1961. Having eluded scientific efforts at decipherment since that time, the current paper proposes a strategy which combines traditional palaeographic techniques and cryptographic methods. By means of this procedure, a tentative decipherment of the inscription has been constructed. The experimental results show that the ancient inscription may be a spell or charm in a central Philippine language with aJavanese admixture.