Kita Sana'y Mabasa: Was the Calatagan Pot code cracked?

photo from PCIJ Blog (http://www.pcij.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/calatagan-pot.jpg)

I heard from U.P. friends that Ramon “Bomen” Guillermo, known to the circle of student activists as a kind-hearted fellow and a very serious scholar with a passion for Philippine studies (he wrote a Ph.D. dissertation on Jose Rizal’s translation of Schiller’s “Wilhelm Tell” from German to Tagalog), came out recently with the announcement that he discovered a method to decipher the inscription in the Calatagan Pot. In the most recent paper of Bomen Guillermo co-written with another U.P. scholar Myfel Paluga which is awaiting publication in an international academic journal, it is also claimed that the language used in the Calatagan Pot inscription is Bisaya. By the way, the copy I got from Guillermo’s better half (not Paluga) says on the header “Do not disseminate or cite”, so I’m not going to make direct quotations from the paper (and will leave the “best part” untouched). I will only deal with the method he used which he already made an exposition of in a UP symposium and was written about in the PCIJ blog.

For those who are clueless about the Calatagan Pot, it is an artifact from Philippine pre-history which is considered very rare because it contains writing around its mouth. Apparently, there are only three other artifacts that contain inscriptions in them, namely, the Laguna copperplate; the Butuan ivory seal; and the Butuan goldleaf. (See the wonderful blog A Philippine Leaf by Hector Santos.) The Calatagan Pot was discovered during the extensive archeological excavation of Calatagan, Batangas conducted by the National Museum some fifty years ago.

Although a number of experts and enthusiasts alike have attempted to do it, no one has been able to say what language the inscription was written in and therefore also no one has been able to read the inscription in the Calatagan Pot. Not until very recently.

We know from Spanish accounts that ancient Filipinos had their own writing systems (not one but several). The Spaniards recorded several syllabaries used by speakers of Bisaya, Ilocano, Pampango, Pangasinan, and Tagalog, among others (these were collected by Trinidad Pardo de Tavera (1884) in matrix form). Also, the Mangyans of Mindoro and the Tagbanuas of Palawan continue to use their own writing systems even to this day to write poetry, among others.

However, the writing in the Calatagan Pot contains unfamiliar symbols different from those found in any of the recorded Philippine syllabaries. To compound the problem of aspiring decipherers, the writing on the pot has been incorrectly transcribed or rendered on paper by the National Museum. Instead of making yet another artistic and possibly inaccurate paper rendition of the writing on the pot, and to avoid any mistake due to faulty transcription, Guillermo photographed the inscription under various lighting conditions and traced the grooves thus revealed.

When Guillermo announced his discovery that he is able to partially read a few lines of the Calatagan Pot inscription during a forum held last year at the University of the Philippines, it surfaced that a medical doctor Quintin Oropilla has also already claimed to have deciphered the Catalagan Pot inscription ahead of Guillermo. However, Guillermo appears not to have been aware of Oropilla’s work which was cloaked for many years in absolute secrecy and which differs from his in the method used. Moreover, Guillermo later pointed out photographic evidence indicating fatal mistakes in Oropilla’s paper rendition of the inscription on the pot.

So how did Guillermo crack the code of the Calatagan pot? How did he and Paluga figure out that the message was written in Bisaya? Were they able to establish that there really was an intelligible message written there?

First, we have to describe the inscription itself.

Description of the Calatagan Pot inscription

(1) a six-part string: It consists of 45 symbols strung together around the mouth of the pot. Of these 45, five are simple horizontal bars or strokes. The five bars are distributed in such a way that they appear to divide the string into six groups of symbols of roughly equal length, so it is very convenient to treat the bars as not really symbols but simply as string dividers. That leaves 40 symbols. Of these 40, only 19 are unique symbols. Of these 19, five appear to resemble other symbols (which can be thought of as their base symbols) and differ from them only by the inclusion of a small “c”-shaped mark placed above or below them. If these small “c” marks are to be treated like diacritical marks, then there are really only 14 truly unique symbols in the Calatagan pot.

(2) a broken circle: If the start and the end of the string join each other as in a circle, there would conceivably be more problems for aspiring decipherers. Fortunately, the writing on the Calatagan Pot is inscribed in such a way that one node is placed below the other node (rather like a “9” than an “e” shape). Because of this feature of the inscription, we know at least where the start and the end are (but not which is which). Based on the physical properties of the pot revealed by his photographic examination (I can’t say more, you will have to check the journal article), Guillermo convincingly opined that the start is the node which is above the other node, and that the writing should be read in a clockwise direction.

Two Ways to Figure Out what the Symbols Stood for

Guillermo makes use of a combination of two different approaches:

(1) Closest Resemblance approach: Guillermo assumed that the inscription is in a syllabary essentially similar to the recorded Philippine syllabary. If this assumption is true, then (1) each of the 40 symbols in the inscription probably represented syllables (vowels only or consonant-vowel combinations) (Guillermo actually asserted that one of the 40 symbols, viz., the symbol at the start had no syllable value but only functioned as a start marker); (2) the six symbols which had “c” marks above or below them probably stood for consonant-vowel syllables ending with an e/i (if the “c” mark is placed above the symbol) or an o/u (if placed below the symbol); and (3) since the recorded Philippine syllabaries did not have a way for representing consonants only, the inscription does not contain symbols for consonants only.

He compared the Calatagan symbols with the symbols of the known Philippine syllabaries and hypothesized that the symbols probably stood for the same syllables as the ones that most closely resembled them.

He thought four of the 13 unique symbols in the Calatagan pot were very similar to four of the symbols in the Tagalog syllabary. The Tagalog symbol for “ba” which looks like an inverted heart is probably the least controversial of the equivalences he made, because the inverted heart symbol in the pot and in the Tagalog syllabary are exactly alike. Guillermo also noticed that one of the Calatagan pot symbol looked exactly like the Tagalog symbol for “ma”, only in an inverted position. Guillermo also judged that the Tagalog symbols for “ka” and “na” most closely resembled two more symbols from the mystery pot. In these guesses, Guillermo actually simply joins Juan Francisco (1973) before him.

He also endorsed four of Oropilla’s assignments (the values “ga”, “da”, “wa” and “ya”) based on comparisons with the Tagalog syllabary as used in the 1593 publication Doctrina Christiana (a book written in both Roman alphabet and the then current Tagalog script). Incidentally, the “da” in the Calatagan pot is actually closer to, if not exactly like, the “da” in the Bisaya syllabary than the “da” in the Tagalog script. In fact, Guillermo asserts that the Bisayan “da” symbol is unique to the Bisaya syllabary because the only known sources attest that it is Bisayan, though it has very many antecedents outside the Philippines (in Southeast Asia).

Finally, he and Paluga make their own assignments of “nga” and “ha” to two pot symbols based on the observation that they are mirror or rotated images of the Mangyan “nga” symbol and Bisayan “ha” symbol.

In total, 10 pot symbols were judged similar to symbols in the known Philippine syllabaries. Seven symbols (not counting “da”) were similar to those in Tagalog; two Bisaya (including “da”); and one Mangyan.

Comments on the “closest resemblance” approach: Guillermo is in effect saying here that the Catalagan Pot inscription is in a syllabary whose symbols share many resemblances with Tagalog, and a few with Bisaya and Mangyan as well. In itself, the proposition that there could be a syllabary (unrecorded until Guillermo) that has similarities with the Tagalog, Bisaya and Mangyan syllabaries should not be controversial because in the end all known Philippine syllabaries have the same ancestry anyway (they are supposedly derived from ancient Indian scripts). But shouldn’t the fact that the symbols of the Calatagan syllabary (if we may call it that) have more resemblances to Tagalog symbols argue against the conclusion that the language of the pot writing is Bisaya? If the Calatagan syllabary has far more resemblances to the syllabaries of Tagalog than Bisaya, why not conclude that the language is Tagalog rather than Bisaya? Guillermo and Paluga think that in the determination of the language of the inscription, the greater number of resemblances to Tagalog symbols is outweighed by the fact that a symbol exactly like the form of “da” apparently unique to the Bisaya syllabary was used in the pot. If we follow Guillermo and Paluga, we will be committed to the conclusion that at one point in time and space, speakers of Bisaya used a syllabary with many resemblances to Tagalog. At another point in time (later or earlier) and/or in a different place (maybe farther away from the Tagalog region?), Bisaya speakers used a syllabary that has no such similarities but all the while retaining a specific symbol for “da”.

One could, of course, also opine that the writer of the Calatagan Pot inscription did not draw from one syllabary (the one we called Calatagan syllabary) but combined symbols from different existing syllabaries and perhaps even invented new ones.

In an e-mail to me, Guillermo said:

“The diversity of forms among Philippine scripts require some explaining. For example the circular “ba” of the Bisaya and the kidney-shaped “ba” of other Philippine scripts have other relatives in Southeast Asia and are intimately related if not considered identical. This goes for “ma” and all the other seemingly more “Tagalog” forms. In fact, the theory was that the Bisayans had earlier copied their script from Tagalog at a later date. (Divergences would therefore be phenomena occurring after or contemporaneous with the CPI.) But if the Bisayans had copied their script from the Tagalogs, why did they preserve the seemingly more ancient forms of “ba” and “da”? There may have been a multidirectional flow of sources from which the total script was finally based. There is also no reason to suppose that very strong distinctions had existed among syllabaries at the presumed time of the pot. We may be projecting our own modern notions of regional identity on the past.”

Speaking of the closest resemblance approach more generally, how do we say that a symbol resembles another anyway? There would be no controversy if two symbols were exactly alike; we would then expect them to have the same syllable values. Guillermo has also asserted that inverting a symbol does not result in a change of syllable value. (This sort of reminds me of the inverted “E” in “EMINEM”. Was the Calatagan Pot writer doing just that kind of trick with existing symbols?) As for the rest of the symbols he judged similar to those in the known Philippine syllabaries, what we rely ultimately is the thorough familiarity of Guillermo and others who have seen and studied these later syllabaries. In other words, we are relying here on the judgment of experts. Perhaps, the objectivity and reliability of expert judgment can be enhanced by soliciting the opinion of many such experts. I suppose, since Philippine scripts ultimately derive from ancient India, experts in ancient Indian scripts should also take a look at Guillermo’s work.

Finally, I add this highly skeptical view of the closest resemblance approach to deciphering unknown script from one scientist who himself is credited (along with Michael Ventris) for deciphering a previously undeciphered script from Greek pre-history (called the Linear B script first found in Mycenaea) using purely cryptanalytic/statistical method:

“Now classical Cypriot was obviously related to Linear B. Seven signs can be easily equated, and there are others showing varying degrees of resemblance, but about three-quarters of the signs could only be equated by pure guesswork, and we now know that most of the guesses were wrong. … Nonetheless, almost all who approached Linear B started by transferring the Cypriot values to the Linear B signs, though even the most elementary study of the history of writing shows that the same sign, even in related systems, may stand for different sounds.” (John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear B (Cambridge University Press, 1958), pp. 23-24)

“There are two methods by which one can proceed. One is by a methodical analysis…; the other is by more or less pure guesswork. Intelligent guessing must of course play some part in the first case; but there is a world of difference between a decipherment founded upon careful internal analysis and one obtained by trial and error. Even this may produce the correct result; but it needs to be confirmed by application to virgin material, since it can gain no probability from its origin. A cool judgment is also needed to discriminate between what a text is likely or unlikely to contain.” (Ibid., p. 26)

Unfortunately, we have no other sample of the Calatagan script except the Calatagan pot itself. The extreme scarcity of material prevents the application of purely cryptanalytic/statistical method which involves finding combinatory patterns in a sufficiently large sample of code. (“It is now generally known that any code can in theory be broken, provided sufficient examples of coded texts are available…” (Ibid., p. 41)) Happily, we have a good supply of “cool judgement” in Guillermo’s and Paluga’s use of the essentially trial and error method of the symbol resemblance approach, which is all that we have to compensate for the scarcity of material.

(2) Cross-word Puzzle approach: Where Guillermo truly departs from his predecessors is his use of what he called cryptographic method. This is how I understood his method. Each symbol is to be assigned a syllable value which should be the same value it gets in all occurrences of the same symbol in the string. Thus, the six-part string of symbols in the Calatagan Pot can be seen as a kind of crossword puzzle where the six groups of symbols (lines) cross each other in those spots were they share symbols.

Guillermo plugged the four Tagalog values offered by Francisco into the puzzle and noticed that the fifth line (consisting of seven symbols) had the least number of still empty spots. In the fifth line, the second, third and seventh symbols were still not decided but the third and seventh symbols were the same (i.e., there were really only two spots to be filled).

The fifth line read: “ke/ki”- (x) - (y) - “na” - “ma” - “ba” - (y).

Each of these still empty slots x and y (but not both at the same time) could be "a", "e/i", "o/u", "da", "ga", "ha", "la", "nga", "pa", "ra", "sa", "ta", "wa", or "ya".

Considering only the fifth line, he then simply generated all possible combinations of symbols (there were 182 possibilities). Of these, he was struck by one particular combination where the second symbol is “ta” and the third and last symbols are “sa”. This value assignments gives: “ke/ki”-“ta”-“sa”-“na”-“ma”-“ba”-“sa”.

Kita sana mabasa? Kita sana[’y] mabasa! (I hope I will be able to read you!)

I could just imagine what Guillermo must have felt like when he chanced upon this particular possible combination. Did the pot just give him a message? a message that reflected his ardent desire?

Guillermo then checked the values “ta” and “sa” for symbol resemblance, and after being satisfied that the “ta” in the Tagalog and Bikol syllabaries and the “sa” in the Mangyan syllabary resembled the Calatagan pot symbols in question, he finally decided on those assignments.

Finding this procedure promising, he plugged the two new decided values into the puzzle and saw that the first line has the least number of still empty spots (only one empty spot) and already seemed partly “readable” notwithstanding this incompleteness. It “read”: (x)-“na”-“bi”-“sa”-“ka”-“ta”. He thought he found here two words, namely, “bisa” and “kata”. (Earlier Guillermo thought x could be “i/e” which would yield yet another word “ina”, but he changed his mind and chose the value “ga” instead producing the word “gana”.)

In summary, Guillermo assigned values for ten Calatagan symbols based on symbol resemblance, and two based on his cryptographic method (“ta” and “sa”) supported by symbol resemblance. This gives 12. Also, Guillermo proposed to treat the start symbol as having no syllable value (but was merely a start marker) based on the observation that the part of Doctrina Christiana written in Tagalog script also employed (a different) start marker.

And finally, to complete the assignments for all 14 unique symbols, the remaining unassigned symbol is deemed as “la” (the remaining choices were “a”, “e/i”, “la”, “o/u”, “pa” and “ra”). Why “la” was chosen instead of the six more options was not explained.

Plugging all decided values into the puzzle, the result is the following:

(start marker)-“ga”-“na”-“be/bi”-“sa”-“ka”-“ta” |

“do/du”-“na”-“ke/ki”-“ta”-“ha”-“la”-“ba” |

“ya”-“wa”-“sa”-“la”-“ka”-“ka”-“ga” |

“ya”-“ya”-“la”-“ne/ni”-“ma”-“no/nu”-“de/di” |

“ki”-“ta”-“sa”-“na”-“ma”-“ba”-“sa” |

“ba”-“da”-“ke/ki”-“ba”-“nga”.

Final step: reading

According to Guillermo, the next and final step is to discover meaningful words in each line. Here, Guillermo and Paluga uses what amounts to trial-and-error using a dictionary “as a feedback mechanism” (Guillermo’s e-mail). The reader seems to have a wide latitude of discretion in that he can insert any consonant he wants after any syllable he chooses. This is due to the fact that the known Philippine syllabaries do not have a way of representing consonants only (as opposed to consonant-vowel syllables) but the pot writer may have intended the inscription to be read as having them.

Another matter over which the reader appears to have unlimited control is the choice of language. It appears that the “reader” can chose to read the inscription in any (presumably Philippine) language he likes though constructing a coherent utterance from just any dictionary of a Philippine language is not an easy task, and in many cases simply impossible. “Anyone who tries this will know,” says Guillermo. As already mentioned, Guillermo and Paluga, however, think it should be read in Bisaya because of the fact that the inscription makes use of the symbol for “da” in a form unique to the Bisaya syllabary.

What reading did the writer of the Calatagan pot inscription intend? Guillermo appears to be of the view that any number of readings can be constructed. (Besides Guillermo and Paluga, Salazar has also constructed other reading/s based on Guillermo’s symbol equivalences.) However, some readings can be judged as more plausible than others based on a number of criteria which he and co-writer Myfel Paluga devised on the basis of the virtues of their own reading. They called these criteria: lexical coherence (the words hang together, i.e., they shouldn’t just be a jumble of words; grammatical correctness and attested vocabulary are here important); historical emplotment (i.e., the reading shouldn’t be unhistorical, e.g., we shouldn’t expect the words “Facebook” or “cellphone” in it); and sociological mapping or embeddedness. I personally think we should only test for lexical coherence if we assume that the writing on the Calatagan Pot was indeed a sort of intelligible message or text. But why shouldn’t the pot writing be a jumble of words instead? As for “sociological embeddedness”, this means that “for example, the practices and social institutions it seems to refer to are attested to exist.” In the Guillermo/Paluga reading, for example, there was mention of “Gana”, a version of the elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh’s name, “barang” (curse), and the objects “banga” (pot) and “halabas”, a kind of cutting instrument, which could be woven into a social context (e.g., babaylanic ritual practices) that fits well into what is known about pre-Hispanic Philippines.)

Another criterion they employed (against Oropilla’s reading) but did not name as such is statistical plausibility. This criterion demands that a reading that inserts too many consonants is less plausible than those where the number of consonant insertions is within an acceptable range. (As Guillermo and Paluga are aware, the acceptable range can be computed, i.e., we can observe how many consonant “deletions” (if we may call them that) are usually made in existing samples of writings of similar length (40 symbols) in Philippine syllabaries, e.g., Mangyan/Tagbanua poems.)

With Guillermo’s permission, I reproduce at the end Guillermo’s and Paluga’s own favored reading. I will have to say that the construction and justification of their favored reading has got to be the most creative part of their decipherment work.

Concluding Impressions

Guillermo and Paluga think that if there is any undisputable contribution that these efforts have made, it is to encourage and inspire further “actual” readings of the CPI. (At least six or maybe even more readings have been made or publicized since Guillermo announced his initial results. This is a much better situation than the mute inscription of fifty years past.) But as Guillermo himself acknowledges “scientific skepticism must be upheld at all times” so that when a final consensus is reached as to what the pot really says it would be based on scientific reasoning, not wishful thinking.

Without a doubt, the work of Guillermo and Paluga makes standard-setting contributions in bringing reason, patience and creativity to bear on the solution of the fifty-year old mystery that is the Calatagan Pot writing. But as Guillermo and Paluga themselves admit, theirs is not meant as the final solution to the Calatagan puzzle. I myself hope that Guillermo’s substitution of syllable values for the symbols of the pot are correct. Because if they are correct, then the puzzle is 50% solved. Only 50% solved, I say, because there still remains the matter of inserting consonants. Unless a method is devised for constructing a reading other than inserting any number of consonants the reader desires, the construction of readings of the Calatagan puzzle will be as it is now a level open field.

The Guillermo/Paluga reading of the writing on the Calatagan Pot:

[01]Barang [02]king [03]banga

[04]Kita [05]sana [06]magbasa

[07]Yamyam [08]la [09]ni [10]Manugdait:

[11]Yawa, [12]sala, [13]kakaga

[14]Duna [15]kita'y [16]halabas

[Batara] [17]gana [18]bisa [19]kata

Spell of this pot

Let us read that

Just chant this Shaman:

Evil spirit, evil-doing, falsehood

We have a sword

Ganésa can say.

Internet Sources:

A Philippine Leaf: Hector Santos

PCIJ BLog on Dr. Ramon "Bomen" Guillermo's presentation at U.P. (photos of the Calatagan pot and Bomen Guillermo)

"Ina Bisa Kata": Bomen Guillermo's paper made available by PCIJ

Zeus Salazar's powerpoint presentation

Next: Was the Ibalon epic confirmed? Evidence of ancient civilization in Bicol (for a background: http://zasalazar.multiply.com/journal/item/9)