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#Exhibit of the Month

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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

„CUCUTENI 2016”

July 25th - August 1st, 2016

Exhibition „Cucuteni 2016" was organized by Art Studio „Picasso" in partnership with the National Museum of History of Moldova.


The exhibition brings together 73 ceramic artworks and 24 paintings which reproduce Cucuteni-Trypillian culture, one of the oldest civilizations in Europe, made by artists from Europe, Asia and Africa, participants at the Cucuteni International Art Camp 2016.

On display are a diversity of vessels with Cucuteni elements and female ceramic figurines made in different shapes and sizes. The ceramic vessels and female figurines are the main elements of Cucuteni culture.

The artworks were created within the three weeks of the Cucuteni International Art Camp 2016, the second edition of which was held in Ivancea between June 26 and July 16, 2016. The edition from 2016 was attended by 25 artists from 10 countries: Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Poland, Moldova, Romania, Russia and Ukraine.
The exhibition was opened to the public on the upper lobby of the museum. It ended on August 1 with a charity auction.


*Cucuteni-Trypillian culture is a unique phenomenon in human history. This is one of the oldest civilizations in Europe which formed several centuries before the emergence of human settlements in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. The culture was spread on the present-day territory of Republic of Moldova, Romania and Ukraine, our republic being the center of its cultural area.

The Eneolithic culture developed in the forest steppe area between the Carpathian Mountains and Dnieper River in the period of the 5th-4th millennia BC, it adapted to local conditions giving rise to closely related cultural phenomena which formed together a vast archaeological complex spread on an area of over 350.000 km2 and called by specialists, under conventional laws of archaeology, Cucuteni-Trypillia-Ariușd, after the names of villages in Moldova, Ukraine and Romania where discoveries of this type were made for the first time at the end of the nineteenth century.

The ceramics is the exceptional legacy of this culture. Shaped and painted by hand with vivid polychrome spiral and meander motifs, the Cucuteni ceramics is an argument that stands for the high level of development of this civilization of sedentary farmers.

The archaeologists have found in every Trypillian home between 30 and 200 ceramic objects: ceramic vessels (for keeping supplies, cups, bowls, ritual vessels) and anthropomorphic and zoomorphic artworks. The quality of the ceramic is unequalled: fine, smooth, painted with great skill in red, white, black and brown. The decorative rhythm is perfect, loaded with symbols and ornaments and represent real works of art with an age of 6-7 thousand years old.


 




Independent Moldova
Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic
Bessarabia and MASSR between the Two World Wars
Bessarabia and Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in the Period between the Two World Wars
Revival of National Movement
Time of Reforms and their Consequences
Abolition of Autonomy. Bessarabia – a New Tsarist Colony
Period of Relative Autonomy of Bessarabia within the Russian Empire
Phanariot Regime
Golden Age of the Romanian Culture
Struggle for Maintaining of Independence of Moldova
Formation of Independent Medieval State of Moldova
Era of the
Great Nomad Migrations
Early Middle Ages
Iron Age and Antiquity
Bronze Age
Aeneolithic Age
Neolithic Age
Palaeolithic Age
  
  

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#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...

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The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC

 



The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC

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The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC