A STONE Age tool, a broken earthen burial jar that contained human bones and a small pot, and a half-hectare complex of structural ruins have stirred deeper interest in Biliran province's culture and heritage among local officials, residents and researchers.

In December, Biliran Gov. Rogelio J. Espina and capitol employees got excited by the visit of an archeological team from the National Museum that included Dr. Eusebio Z. Dizon, chief archeologist, and Leo Batoon, researcher.

They were accompanied by Romulo Verana, a Manila-based government accountant and native of Biliran's Caibiran town.

The team came to dig an archeological test pit in Barangay Kaulangohan, Caibiran, where a Neolithic adze, a Stone Age cutting tool, was found some 30 years ago by Filomeno Rosario and his son, both residents of the barangay. The artifact was brought to the National Museum and shown by Verana to Dizon in 1998.

Dizon had estimated that the Kaulangohan Neolithic adze dates back to 2,000 to 2,500 B.C. He said he believed the users of this adze were very early Austronesian migrants in the area around 2,500 B.C., before they moved elsewhere.

The site of the digging was named after ulango, a palm tree whose leaves provided fibers for Bisayan clothing in the 17th century. This tree is now probably extinct or known by another name.

Unfortunately, the digging was disrupted by a typhoon and had to be abandoned. In the meantime, the National Museum submitted an archeological project proposal for Biliran, which Dizon hoped would be funded by the provincial government.

A lesser-known set of artifacts in Biliran is an earthen secondary burial jar that contained human bones and a small earthen pot. These were rejects left behind by treasure hunters who plundered the seaside cave on Tingkasan Islet off Barangay Balacson in Kawayan town for valuable items in the 1970s.

The hunters took centuries-old ceramic burial jars and bowls and intact earthen burial jars and items of commercial value, including beads and pieces of jewelry.

After they left, the residents of Balacson buried the bones and several broken burial jars with their contents in the floor of their Catholic chapel.

In the 1990s, when interest in local culture and heritage became a national fancy, the barangay chair of Balacson retrieved a broken burial jar that contained human bones and a small earthen pot from its burial site in the chapel.

On May 11, 2003 the Balacson pot, a wide-mouthed and slightly deformed artifact that perhaps contained send-off items such as food or pieces of jewelry for the dead, was loaned by the barangay for the Municipal Museum Display Contest in Naval. This was during the launching of the Biliran Museum Project that was timed with the 11th anniversary of Biliran.

Although the Kawayan Booth won the contest, the Balacson pot did not stand out among the many other display items because its historical details were not available then.

It can now be told that the Balacson burial jar and pot probably dates back to 800 A.D., based on comparison with photographs and carbon-dating data about similar artifacts found by archeologists inside caves in Samar and Sorsogon. They are much older than the ca. 13th-14th century ceramic jars and bowls taken from the Tingkasan Cave.

The Biliran Museum building has been completed and was inaugurated last May 11. It is called Museo de Panamao, after an ethnic fishing net that was also the old name of Biliran Island.

The most extensive archeological curiosity in the province are the Nasunugan Ruins (which means burned ruins), a half-hectare complex of structural ruins on a hilltop near the highway just outside the poblacion of Biliran town.

For nearly a decade now, only the restored Nasunugan Watchtower, a Spanish era structure made of coral stone blocks, was known to outsiders, since its picture was printed on postcards and tourist brochures.

However, at around September last year, the area was prepared for the visit of the Biliran Provincial Tourism Council. In the process, students from the local college who cleared the garbage dump and thick vines and vegetation revealed the crumbling ruins of a more extensive fortress about 30 meters from the restored tower.

I first visited the ruins last October, guided by George Plecerda, the secretary of the mayor and local heritage aficionado. We found that the village chapel of the town's Core Shelter Project stood in the middle of a quadrangle that used to be enclosed by a massive gate and walls made of coral stone blocks some 15 meters from the fortress.

Below the quadrangle is a triangular terrace surrounded by crumbling walls of coral stone blocks. The terrace ground is overgrown with banana clumps.

The original structures here were probably built around the time of the Biliran Religious Revolt from 1765 to 1774. Their architecture is original; they have not been patterned after other Spanish churches and watch towers found all over Leyte and Samar.

The Biliran revolt was led by Padre Gaspar Ignacio de Guevara, a native priest from Samar who was the first parish priest of the Biliran pueblo. He broke away from the Catholic Church, formed his own sect, and experimented with a commune society for the natives in the forest of Biliran, some eight kilometers from its protective fortress.

Padre Gaspar was captured by Moro pirates and drowned around 1774. The pirates or his followers later burned his forest commune and the structures in the existing ruins.

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