#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.

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Exhibitions

"Centenary of the Constitution of Unified Romania (1923 - 2023)"

December 6, 2023 – January 20, 2024

The "Centenary of the Constitution of Unified Romania (1923 - 2023)", the first fundamental law that legislated the state organization, as well as the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens on both banks of the Prut, will be celebrated in Chisinau, in the framework of a thematic exhibition of documents and photos organized by the Constitutional Court of Romania and the National Museum of History of Moldova.

The opening of the exhibition dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of 1923 will take place at an opening organized on Wednesday, December 6, 2023, at 11:00, at the National Museum of History of Moldova, with the participation of representatives of the Presidency of the Republic of Moldova, the Parliament and of the Government, of the judges of the Constitutional Court of Romania and of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Moldova, as well as of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and the State University of Moldova.

The exhibition can be visited between December 6, 2023 and January 20, 2024, in the Union Hall of the National Museum of History of Moldova, and within the exhibition, the original copy of the Constitution from 1923, as well as the Romanian Constitution from 1866, with the support of the event's institutional partners: the Presidential Administration of Romania – the Cotroceni National Museum, the National Bank of Romania and the Bucharest Metropolitan Library.

The Constitution of 1923 was adopted by the Assembly of Deputies and the Senate, meeting as National Constituent Assemblies in the Parliament of Bucharest, in the meetings of March 26 and 27, 1923, being promulgated by King Ferdinand through Royal Decree no. 1360 of March 28, 1923 countersigned by the President of the Council of Ministers, Ion I. C. Bratianu, and 14 ministers, and was published in the "Official Gazette" no. 282 of March 29, 1923.

Romania and the Republic of Moldova are therefore united, not only by history, faith, language and common traditions, but today they share a unique moment in their constitutional and state history. For Romania and the Republic of Moldova, the Constitution of 1923 is the common democratic constitutional legacy that preserves for future generations, on both banks of the Prut, common constitutional roots and shows them a common European future.

Considering its importance for the common constitutional history, the Constitutional Court of Romania, the guarantor of the supremacy of the Constitution, declared by the plenary decision of January 18, 2023 - the Year of the "Centenary of the Constitution of Unified Romania" and organized on this anniversary occasion, an Assembly solemn at the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest, on March 27, 2023, with the participation of the President of Romania, the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, the Prime Minister and members of the Government of Romania, the judges of the Constitutional Courts from Bucharest and Chisinau, the representatives of the High Court of Cassation and Justice, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church and the representatives of other religions and the diplomatic corps.