The Balangay boats remain among the Philippines’s most significant archaeological discoveries that connect the Philippines to its historic past before the Spanish colonization of the archipelago.
The remains of the first boat, first unearthed in Barangay Libertad beginning in the 1970s, represent sophisticated plank-built, edge-pegged vessels dating from the 8th to 10th centuries CE, based on recalibrated radiocarbon dating.
At least nine boats have been excavated, although historical records suggest there may have been as many as eleven. All the boats are found in a certain area relatively close to each other in Barangay Libertad.
Through Proclamation No. 86 signed by then President Corazon Aquino, the Butuan boats were declared National Cultural Treasures.
The discoveries have also demonstrated that ancient boat-building technology was widely shared across maritime Southeast Asia.
‘There are similar boat-building traditions in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand,’ Nero M. Austero said. ‘This shows there was cultural exchange and the sharing of boat-building technology across the region.’
Searching for the missing boats
After the last archaeological excavation in Butuan in 2012, the NMP resumed its archaeological investigations in Butuan in 2024, returning to previously recorded sites in an effort to identify some of the undocumented boats.
In 2025, archaeologists excavated a portion of the Toyota property after consulting former National Museum personnel familiar with earlier excavations.
Initially believed to contain the remains of Boat 3, the newly exposed timbers did not fully match historical records.
‘Based on our literature review and old photographs, we realized it was not the same boat,’ Austero said. ‘We also cannot yet determine whether it belongs to one of the 11 reported boats because historical documentation remains incomplete.’
The trenches nevertheless exposed approximately 10 meters of wooden planking featuring dowel holes and scarf joints, distinctive construction features of the ancient Butuan boats pointing to an estimated vessel size measuring 10 and 12 meters long.
A long-awaited excavation at Torralba
The latest excavation focused on the Torralba property, managed by Paz Torralba, where residents had long reported buried wooden remains. ‘Even back in 2024, many people were already telling us they could see a boat on the site,’ Austero said.
Because of limited access and time during the 2025 field season, archaeologists were unable to excavate the property and conducted only a site inspection.
‘This year we had time, so we divided the team,’ Austero said. ‘Two members went to Ma’am Paz’s site and conducted a confirmatory excavation.’
Slow science beneath the mud
The team explained that unlike treasure hunting, archaeological excavation is painstaking and systematic. Before they open a trench, researchers establish survey reference points, lay out excavation grids and carefully clean the site.
On untouched archaeological deposits, excavation proceeds in 10-centimeter layers, with every change in soil, artifact and wooden feature carefully recorded before digging continues. Documenting the exact depth, the coordinates, and the position of every feature within the area.
Researchers also used sounding rods to detect buried wood before excavation and screened excavated soil to recover even the smallest artifacts.
Protecting the discovery for future redicovery
Once documentation was completed, archaeologists reburied the excavation trenches to protect the fragile timbers.
Unlike stone artifacts, ancient wood deteriorates rapidly once removed from the wet, oxygen-poor environment that preserved it for centuries.
‘The purpose of backfilling is conservation,’ Austero said. ‘If the wood is left exposed without mud and silt covering it, it can deteriorate.’
The NMP hopes to return to the Torralba site during a future field season to expose more of the vessel and determine whether it belongs to one of Butuan’s previously documented Balangay boats or represents an entirely new archaeological discovery.
For the archaeological team, every newly exposed plank offers another glimpse into the sophisticated maritime civilization that once flourished along the Agusan River, one whose shipbuilders connected Butuan to the wider trading world of Southeast Asia more than a millennium ago.
NMP-Butuan hopes that with the support of the local government unit of Butuan, the community, researchers and other stakeholders, more discoveries will be found that they hope would contribute and shed light on Butuan’s historic past.
‘If there are more boats beneath our feet, then we have a shared responsibility to protect them-not just as artifacts, but as an irreplaceable part of the story and identity of Filipinos. The Butuan boats sailed us in the past, continue to guide us in the present, and will carry our heritage into the future,’ said Plaza.
Plaza concluded that there is still so much we do not know about our ancient past, and every carefully documented finding brings us closer to understanding the remarkable maritime civilization of our ancestors and its place in the broader history of the Filipino people.