#Exhibit of the Month

One of the great technical achievements that revolutionized the idea of time and space, opening a new era in the history of communication, is telegraphy. It is based on the transmission of electrical signals through a cable over long distances, allowing people to communicate instantly. The telegraph spread very quickly and a network of wires stretched around the world.

In 1837, the American painter and physicist Samuel Morse invented the first electromagnetic device for telegraphy, patented in 1840. To send messages by wire, Morse developed in 1838 a simple code of dots and dashes, which represented the letters of the alphabet, known as "Morse code ".

Both Morse code and the telegraph machine were improved over time, with the telegraph becoming the most widespread system of communication and information transmission for more than a century, until the advent of the Internet. The telegraph system consisted of a series of stations repeaters along the transmission line route. Each station had an operator who received and transmitted messages by telegraph. The Morse machine transmitted about 25 words per minute, which were recorded in code on a paper tape. The operator in charge of transmitting the message would decode it and write it on paper using a special typewriter.

In Bessarabia, the telegraph entered in 1860: on April 8, the Bender telegraph station began its activity, and on April 24, the one in Chisinau, following the construction of the first Odesa-Chisinau-Leova telegraph line. Currently, telegraph services have been discontinued. The only ones who still use coded communication are radio amateurs.

The Morse telegraph machine shown comes from the Osinoostrovsky electrotechnical plant, Soviet Union, and dates back to 1934. The exhibit was restored by Mihail Culașco.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

“History of Military Headgear”

(May 18, 2010 – December 31, 2011)

The exhibition aims to familiarize the public with some valuable items from the collections of the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova.

To give a general view of all the museum collections of military exhibits, the most spectacular ones, the exhibition brings to the public attention the obligatory accessories of military clothing – headdresses.

This type of military artefacts is exhibited separately for the first time.

The exhibition includes a selection of about 100 the most representative museum items of the kind. The presentation is made in evolutional order, from the 4th century B.C. to the present, in terms of the type of headgear.

The museum collection of headgear was constituted in the second half of the 20th century through donations and fortuitous discoveries. It includes more than 300 items from the oldest times to the present illustrating the evolution of this element of military costume in Europe. Some of the headdresses from the collection belonged to the military persons of figure.

The exhibition of headgear lets us to retrace the main changes in uniforms occurred as a result of the development and improvement of the military institution.

The exhibited items originate from the Russian Empire, Prussia, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Romania, the Ottoman Empire, Germany, USSR, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Republic of Moldova.

These military artefacts are of various types - helmets, shakoes, garrison caps, fezes, hats, berets, kepis, caps, of daily, field or ceremonial wearing.

The oldest and most valuable items shown in the exhibition are two helmets, one of them of the Phrygian type, dated from the second half of the 4th century B.C. and found in 1958 in a hoard from Olanesti (the Stefan Voda District), and the other one of the 14th century, found at the Orheiul Vechi.

The latest headgear belongs to the National Army of the Republic of Moldova: hat, kepi, and cap of the 1992 model.

The exhibition is complemented with headgear accessories: plume, pompon, egret, cockades, and other items: epaulettes, belts, pouch, map case, whip, shabrack, protective mask and glasses, holster, weapons, etc. On mannequins there are presented several types of uniforms: of an uhlans’ trumpet-player (1855), of a hussar (1855), of the “Rosiori” lieutenant-colonel (1934), and of a soldier of the National Army Honour Guard (1992). On the walls there are photographs presenting images of the military from different countries of Europe in their uniforms. All these contribute to the reconstruction of the European military history.

-1-

-2-

-3-

-4-

-5-

-6-