MAITUM CAVES

Exploring through Ayub cave is like traveling back to the metal age of the Philippines, circa 500 BC to 500 AD.

A unique and fascinating assemblage of archeological find (human faces and figures in earthenware medium) that depicts Sarangani’s cultural wealth was excavated here.

These potteries were used as secondary burial jars. Its coverings were molded as human heads emulating different facial expressions of happiness, contentment, and even a trace of desolation.

Such were shaped artistically tracing the most conservative detail of the human face that can still be seen in the broken fragments of the jars outside the cave... retaining their natural color even up to now.

Some of the artifacts collected are now displayed in the National Museum while others are kept by some of the residents nearby the cave.

Ayub cave is made up of Miocene limestone formation. The opening is about two meters wide and two meters high, sloping downward to at least 20 degrees angle and extending a length of 11 meters from the entrance.

But earthquakes, which cropped up sometime in 1970s to 1990s widened the cave’s opening.

Ayub cave is located at Barangay Pinol in Maitum, about 50 meters away from the national highway and approximately 30-minute ride from the Poblacion. Surrounding plants have, however, made this cave unnoticed.