A Place for History Buffs – National Museum of the Philippines

Planning a trip? Those who love to travel know the essence of all travel is about you and your enjoyment. Travelers know that the destination is a major part in planning a trip, experiencing and delving deeper into an unfamiliar places, people and culture is paramount.

Expand your horizons and set your sight to the Philippines, an off the beaten path travel site! An undiscovered paradise made of thousands of islands and white sand beaches all around! A tiny dot in the map of the world, and yet a haven for travelers, backpackers, retirees and even passersby.

It offers awesome tourist attractions, magnificent beaches, hot spring resorts, colorful festivals, hundreds of scenic spots and world-class hotels and facilities. Not to mention the tropical climate, the affordable prices as well as the friendly and hospitable, English-speaking people! You will be glad you came, and we’re sure, you WILL come back for more FUN in the Philippines!

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE PHILIPPINES

Photo from: manilagateway.com

Photo from: flickr.com/photos/lorensgibb/1617934114/

The National Museum of the Philippines is the official repository established in 1901 as a natural history and ethnography museum of the Philippines. It is located next to Rizal Park and near Intramuros in Manila. Its main building was designed in 1918 by an American architect Daniel Burnham. Today, that building, the former home of the Congress of the Philippines, holds the National Art Gallery, natural sciences and other support divisions.

The adjacent building in the Agrifina Circle of Rizal Park, formerly housing the Department of Finance, houses the Anthropology and Archaeology Divisions and is known as the Museum of the Filipino People. – wikipedia.org

Photo from: flickr.com/photos/lorensgibb/1617048673/

Photo from: philippines-travel-guide.com

Inside the National Museum of the Philippines proper is a vast array of historic and cultural artifacts.

Among them are pre-Hispanic artifacts, primitive tools that the Malays and the Negroid Aeta aborigine tribes used.

The most renowned collection of the National Museum in Manila is that of the “San Diego”, one of the galleons that plied the Manila-Acapulco trade. The galleon had been sunk by a typhoon with all hands and an entire cargo of Chinese porcelain, gold, jewelry and weapons. Found and raised largely intact, the artifacts now make up a whole gallery revealing plenty about 17th century life in the country.

To Europeans and Americans, the goods from the “San Diego” are instant lessons about the links that had once prevailed between the Orient, the Old World and the New.

The centerpiece of the National Museum collections, hanging as it does in the main ground floor gallery, is Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium”.

A very large canvas about 23 feet wide and 13 feet tall, the “Spoliarium” depicts life-size figures in a scene of vanquished Roman gladiators being dragged to a pile of corpses while spectators look on and a woman grieves alone in a corner. As a work of art, “Spoliarium” took the gold medal in Madrid’s Exposicion Nacional de Bellas Artes of 1884.

To the Filipino people, still struggling to throw off the yoke of Spain, “Spoliarium” was a heroic representation of their own slavery, sacrifice and tragedy. – philippines-travel-guide.com

Photo from: photos.igougo.com