#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.).

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

“Echoes of War”

4-31 October, 2023

"Echoes of War", witness silent symphony of tales etched in forsaken homes and faded toys - remnants of laughter and life once vibrant. Amidst the rubble, silent voices hum and whisper. From this void, new stories arise, life persists.

In this deeply poignant exhibition, the Syrian photographer Omar Sanadiki provides a reflective visual journey contrasting the silent echoes and turbulent atmospheres from the war that broke out in 2011 in Syria with those captured in 2023 in Ukraine.

In his body of work, Sanadiki captivates the essence of shared human resilience and struggle evident in the faces, landscapes, and stories immortalized in each photograph. This exhibition is not a mere depiction of wars; it unearths the universal human spirit encased in time and space, a whispering echo between two disparate nations intertwined in a common saga of conflict and hope.

The photographs reveal the stories of those who have been forced to endure the irreversible consequences of political folly, the echoes of their silent voices resonating through the powerful imagery of destroyed homelands and shattered lives. It is a contemplative exploration of war, weaving together a mosaic of suffering, strength, loss, and survival, transcending geographical and cultural or linguistic boundaries.

The exhibition has been created as a result of the study visit organized by the European External Action Service to Ukraine in June 2023.

The War as I Saw it:

It is not my habit to talk about anything until I see it with my own eyes.
When I got the chance to visit Ukraine and see the war first-hand, I had an instant flashback to the war in Syria and I started remembering...
...remembering hundreds of images that I had seen in Syria, stories I have heard before, the suffering inflicted by the war and the photographs I had taken there. I began to compare the realities of the two wars: their commonalities and their contrasts.
War is war, wherever it happens, with its repercussions of homelessness, death and widespread destruction. Regardless where and when it happens, civilians are the first ones to suffer the consequences of a manmade tragedy.

The exhibition can be seen from October 4 to 31, 2023 on the fence of the National Museum of History of Moldova.