the Golden Tara

Filipinos are proud of this evidence of a civilization that predates Magellan's and the Spanish interaction in the sixteenth century. The image also shows that there was an Indian impact in our prehistory, which we don't know much about. At the Ayala Museum and the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Museum, the Tara of Agusan can now be studied alongside beautiful pre-Spanish Philippine gold. We can see from these gold items, which date from the 10th to the 12th century, that the Philippines previously experienced a golden age.

In pre-Spanish times, gold was widely employed in trade and was worn as a symbol of power, wealth, and social position. Our forebears are shown as Christmas trees in the 16th-century Boxer Codex, prompting us to wonder why, if our forefathers were so wealthy, so many of our descendants are poor today.

Was it created in the Philippines or was it brought into the country by traders or explorers?