#Exhibit of the Month

The ceramic vessel set was discovered accidentally in October 2025 in the southwestern part of the village of Bălceana, Hâncești District, approximately 1.2 km from the Lăpușnița River. The archaeological materials were recovered by the National Archaeological Agency.

The ceramic assemblage consists of a large storage vessel (pithos) with a capacity of 20 litres (h = 39.2 cm; d = 35.0 cm), decorated with a raised band below the rim; a medium-sized bowl with a capacity of 2.5 litres (h = 16.9 cm; d = 23.2 cm); a medium-sized jug with a capacity of 0.6 litres (h = 12.0 cm; d = 13.4 cm); and the base of a jar-shaped vessel.

The coarse handmade pottery was produced using the coil-building technique, by stacking and shaping coils of clay prepared from a paste tempered with crushed fired clay (grog) and sand. The vessel surfaces are uneven and covered with a yellowish-red slip featuring black patches, while the core of the vessel walls is black in colour.

The three vessels preserved intact display well-defined biconical shapes, with their maximum diameter at the middle of the body and straight or slightly oblique rims with rounded edges. Pottery of this type is characteristic of the Early Medieval cultural area of the northern and northwestern Black Sea region, dating from the 5th to the 7th centuries. East of the Dniester River, on the territory of present-day Ukraine, analogous pottery is found in Penkovka-type settlements, while in the Carpathian-Dniester region it is characteristic of settlements belonging to the Costișa-Botoșana-Hansca cultural group.

Within the Prut-Dniester region, coarse biconical pottery is generally represented by fragments and only relatively rarely by complete vessels, such as those discovered at Hansca, Dănceni, Recea, Seliște, Păhărniceni, and other sites. This type of pottery constituted an indispensable component of the local material culture during the 5th-7th centuries. In this context, the discovery at Bălceana of an almost intact set of coarse biconical vessels represents a relatively rare find of considerable scientific importance.

According to certain hypotheses, the tradition of coarse biconical pottery dating to the 5th-7th centuries originated in the North Pontic region. At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that these biconical ceramic vessels were the result of contemporary ethnocultural interactions, developing simultaneously across the vast territory extending from the Carpathian Mountains to the Dnieper River and the Seversky Donets.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

"A mapping of old estates"

May 18th - July 15, 2011

The exhibition is organized on the occasion of the 195th anniversary from the time of creation of the Bessarabian Topographic Commission headed by Colonel S.I. Kornilovich (1816) and covers the chronological period from the late 18^th century to the first half of the 19^th century.

The main exhibits are maps of estates kept in the collection of the National Museum of Archaeology and History of Moldova. The content of the exhibition is divided into four sections:

Forms of ownership: large and small land property;
Land surveyors: land relations intermediaries;
Land relations: agrarian reforms, sale, purchase, lease, and inheritance of land;
The fate of old estates: collectivization and dispossession.

Stages of development of the forms of land property in the time under review are presented chronologically, highlighting the main stages, and thematically, in accordance with the sections listed above. In addition to the maps, there were used auxiliary exhibits meant to create a historical background of the exhibition. Among these objects there are documents (titles, the manifesto of church lands and the Emancipation Manifesto of February 19, 1861, deeds of sale, lease, and tax), postcards, models of estates, books and magazines of the time with information on land relations, photographs and personal belongings of land surveyors.

The exhibition is concluded by the section "The fate of old estates: collectivization and dispossession", which includes items that refer to sovietization of land relationship (photographs and documents).

#Exhibit of the Month

Ceramic Vessel Set from Bălceana-Hâncești (5th–7th Centuries)

"A mapping of old estates"

May 18th - July 15, 2011

#Exhibit of the Month