#Exhibit of the Month

Manufactured in 1902 by AG vorm Siedel & Nauman in Dresden, Germany.

Dimensions: Length - 38 cm, Width - 35 cm, Height - 20 cm. Weight - 16 kg. It entered the museum collection in 1984, transferred from the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History.

The typewriter features a standard carriage mounted on ball bearings and rollers, along with a keyboard equipped with 42 keys. These contain two complete sets of Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, punctuation marks, numbers, and mathematical symbols, enabling the typing of 126 characters. Beneath the metal casing, the type bars are arranged in a fan-like pattern, holding embossed characters and ink ribbon rollers. When the keys are pressed, the type bars strike the inked ribbon, imprinting characters onto the paper tensioned in the machine's roller system.

The side panels are elegantly decorated with refined cast-iron elements in the Art Nouveau style, displaying the brand name - "Ideal." The Polyglott model, featuring a bilingual keyboard patented in the United Kingdom by Max Klaczko from Riga, Latvia, was produced between 1902 and 1913, marking the first typewriter capable of writing in two languages. The "Ideal Polyglott" typewriter was actively sold in the Russian Empire and gained significant popularity in Poland, Bulgaria, and Serbia.
The typewriter - a mechanical device used for printing text directly onto paper - ranks among the most important inventions of the modern era, as it revolutionized communication. From the late 19th century to the early 21st century, it became an indispensable tool, widely used by writers, in offices, for business correspondence, and in private homes. The peak of typewriter sales occurred in the 1950s when the average annual sales in the United States reached 12 million units. In November 2012, the British Brother factory produced what it claimed to be the last typewriter, which was donated to the Science Museum in London.
The advent of computers, word processing software, printers, and the decreasing cost of these technologies led to the typewriter's disappearance from the mainstream market, turning it into a museum exhibit.
June 23 marks Typewriter Day, commemorating the date when American journalist and inventor Christopher Latham Sholes patented his typewriter. This day celebrates the simple yet revolutionary device that has become history, as well as the remarkable literary achievements it has enabled since 1868.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

“Hansca – archaeological site and school-site (50 years from the beginning of research)”

April 18 - May 5, 2014

A new exhibition with the generic "Hansca - archaeological site and school-site (50 years from the beginning of research)" was opened to the large public at the National Museum of History of Moldova.

The exhibition reunites about 300 archaeological objects, the most representative from HANSCA collection, which have scientific, documentary, historic and esthetic value.

Exhibition “Hansca – archaeological site and school-site (50 years from the beginning of research)”

The pieces included in the exhibition are authentic with only a very small number of objects being subject to some obvious procedures of restoration and conservation. They reflect economic activities displayed through tools of metal, bone, clay or stone; the esthetic taste shown through clothing and adornment objects; religious representations reflected through miniature pieces, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic and through the „magic kit", all dated with the 4th-3rd centuries BC.

Religious beliefs from the Middle Ages are represented by a cross made from wire and a Byzantine type encolpion. Exchange and commercial relations with the Greek and Roman world, and with the Byzantine and Slavic world later in the Medieval period, are documented by objects of glass, bronze and silver.

The original exhibits are accompanied by panoramic or detailed photographic images which reflect the archaeological investigations conducted by researchers and the active participation of students.

International Day for Monuments and Sites celebrated at the National Museum of History of Moldova

Dedicated to the semicentenary from the first archaeological excavation at the site from Hansca, the exhibition is a tribute to all those who through their dedication and perseverance contributed essentially to the valorification of national archaeological heritage and to an objective reconstruction of historic process.

One of the most important sites with objectives of great scientific interest for the archeology and history of Romanian space east of Carpathians has been discovered and investigated near Hansca village, Ialoveni district. The site from Hansca has been identified in 1959. Already in 1960 were conducted the first surveys and were discovered remains of habitat from Getae-Dacian and early medieval periods.

Systematic archaeological investigations at the site from Hansca began in 1964 and continued during 20 archaeological campaigns. As a result of the excavations a total surface of several thousands of square meters has been uncovered. There were discovered remains dated with the late Bronze Age (Noua culture); early Hallstatt (Tămăoani-Holercani culture); Getae culture; Sântana de Mureș-Cernjahov culture and early and developed medieval period.

Starting with the dimensions of the researched area and the number and diversity of discovered archaeological material, the site from Hansca is rightfully considered to be as one of the most representative ancient and medieval monument from Carpathian-Dniester space.

The site from Hansca played a very special role as archaeological site and school. Here, during the entire period of research, tenth of generations of students from history departments conducted their compulsory archeological internship. At Hansca, the students, many of whom later became renowned archaeologists in the Republic of Moldova, have learned and practiced excavation techniques, methods and methodologies of heritage and artifacts management.