100 BC onward

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The Philippines is believed by some historians to be the island of Chryse, the "Golden One," which is the the name given by ancient Greek writers in reference to an island rich in gold east of India. Pomponius Mela, Marinos of Tyre and the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea mentioned this island in 100 BC, and it is basically the equivalent to the Indian Suvarnadvipa, the "Island of Gold." Josephus calls it in Latin Aurea, and equates the island with biblical Ophir, from where the ships of Tyre and Solomon brought back gold and other trade items. The Visayan Islands, particularly Cebu had earlier encounter with the Greek traders in 21 AD.[8]

Ptolemy locates the islands of Chryse east of the Khruses Kersonenson, the "Golden Peninsula," i.e. the Malaya Peninsula. North of Chryse in the Periplus was Thin, which some consider the first European reference to China. In about the 200 BC, there arose a practice of using gold eye covers, and then, gold facial orifice covers to adorn the dead resulting in an increase of ancient gold finds.[9] During the Qin dynasty and the Tang dynasty, China was well aware of the golden lands far to the south. The Buddhist pilgrim I-Tsing mentions Chin-Chou, "Isle of Gold" in the archipelago south of China on his way back from India. Medieval Muslims refer to the islands as the Kingdoms of Zabag and Wakwak as rich in gold, referring to the eastern islands of the Malay archipelago, the location of present-day Philippines and Eastern Indonesia. Zabag was based in what would later become the Luzon Empire.[9][10]

More than a millennium later, the popularity of dental gold to decorate the teeth significantly increased the amount of gold found at archaeological sites. When the Spanish came they discovered an abundance of gold used among the people of the Philippine islands. The Portugese explorer Pedro Fidalgo in 1545 found gold so abundant on Luzon the inhabitants were willing to trade two pezoes of gold for one pezo of silver. When the Portuguese first arrived, most of the gold traded into Brunei came from Luzon. That island was known as Lusung Dao or "Golden Luzon" to the Chinese who also traded for gold in this region.[9]