#Exhibit of the Month

The 21 beads form part of a bronze hoard found in 2019 within a forested area close to the town of Nisporeni. Alongside the beads, the hoard included numerous bronze ornaments (2 Röschitz-Sanislău-type fibulae, 7 necklaces, 12 rings, 22 tubes, 23 bracelets, and approximately 80 appliqués), one coral bead and a pendant made from a wild animal's tooth. At present, the amber beads are preserved in the collections of the Muzeul Național de Istorie a Moldovei, while the remainder of the hoard is in the possession of a private collector.
The hoard was discovered accidentally in a pit about 50 cm deep. The objects in this hoard are of Western origin, with known parallels in archaeological complexes from Poland, Hungary, Serbia, and Slovakia, and, to a lesser extent, in Romania. The presence of this bronze hoard on the territory of the Republic of Moldova illustrates the cultural dynamics of the region during the Early Iron Age and a fundamental shift in the vector of cultural influences from east to west.

The amber bead strand comprises 16 whole beads and five fragmentary ones. They have an elongated biconical shape and vary in size. The beads are brown-reddish in color; their lengths range from 1.1 to 3.1 cm, widths from 0.6 to 1.4 cm, thicknesses from 0.6 to 1.1 cm, and the perforation diameter ranges between 0.2 and 0.3 cm.
Amber beads appear in several bronze hoards dated to the Late Bronze Age in the eastern half of Slovakia and in Transdanubian Hungary. Parallels are also known from the Cioclovina Cave in Romania. With the onset of the Iron Age, amber items disappear from the Carpathian Basin for approximately 300 years, reappearing alongside the arrival of Scythian elements.
The bronze hoard discovered at Nisporeni is dated to the HaA2-HaB1-2 interval (1050/1000 - 800/750 B.C.).

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Exhibitions

“Childhood in the Gulag”

“Alecu Russo” State University of Balti

April 11 - June 30, 2025

In the context of the Day of Commemoration of the Victims of the Famine of 1946-1947 in the Moldavian SSR, the National Museum of History of Moldova announces, in partnership with the „Alecu Russo" State University of Balti and the Institute of History of MSU, the opening of the exhibition "Childhood in the Gulag". The event will take place on April 11, 2025, at 11:30, in the administrative building of the "Alecu Russo" State University of Balti, the first floor lobby.

The exhibition "Childhood in the Gulag" presents photo-documentary images that reflect the lives of Bessarabian children sentenced to deportation, starvation, Russification, indoctrination and forced separation from their families based on the repressive policies of the totalitarian-communist regime in the Moldavian SSR, during the period 1940-1941 and 1944-1953. The exhibition brings together about 180 photo-documentary images, accompanied by memoirs and archival documents from the collections of the National Museum of History of Moldova, the Museum of the Edineț Territory, the Museum of History and Ethnography in Soroca, the ProMemoria Institute, the archives of memory communities, as well as the family archives of victims of the totalitarian-communist regime in the Moldavian SSR.

The photo-documentary exhibition "Childhood in the Gulag" will be open until June 15.

The photo-documentary exhibition "Childhood in the Gulag" was elaborated within the project "Strengthening the European culture of memory by disseminating historical knowledge and promoting democratic values: exchange and implementation of the best practices between Lithuania and the Republic of Moldova", with the support of the "Development Cooperation and Democracy Promotion Programme" of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania.