While at the museum, I also took time out to talk with museum curator Ms. Primitiva “Bing” Talla whom I first met in Basco, Batanes in 2006. Conceptualized in 1971, the museum was inaugurated on August 15, 1973 during the Aggao nac Cagayan. I also explored the museum’s modest but distinguished collection covering various periods in the province’s history – from prehistoric times to the last century. Though picture taking, normally, was not permitted, I was granted special permission to do so.
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On display were fossilized teeth and bones of elephas (pygmy elephants), rhinoceros and stegodons that once roamed the valley half a million years ago; ancient flaked stone tools; 4,000-year old pottery and jewelry found near Lal-lo; porcelain tradeware from the ancestral river trade unearthed from Ybanag burial sites; carved colonial wooden altars; gold-braided vestments from old Dominican missions; and other religious artifacts and antique furnishings such as re-enameled washbasins from old mestizo families, mostly from Nueva Segovia and Vienna chairs.
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| Display of religious artifacts |
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| Bones of stegodons |
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| Antique furniture |
Cagayan Museum and Historical Research Center: Expo Bldg., Provincial Capital Compound, National Highway, Tuguegarao City, Cagayan. Tel: (078) 846-7337. Open Mondays to Fridays, 8:00-11:30 AM and 1:30-4:30 PM.
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