Philippine Gold: Treasures of Forgotten Kingdoms

In 1981 Edilberto Morales joined his team at an irrigation project in the Philippines’ southern island of Mindanao. His task was to help move massive amounts of earth; what Mr. Morales did instead was strike gold. Immediately he starting combing the area and, by the end of the day, had rescued some 22 pounds worth of gold objects made sometime between the 10th and the 13th centuries. Many gold works ended up in the hands of Leandro and Cecilia Locsin. He was a prominent architect, she an archaeologist.

In 2008 Cecilia made their collection of 1,000-plus objects available to the public through the Ayala Museum in metropolitan Manila. It lent many of the objects on display, others came from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Gold Collection.