#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

"Icons painted on ammo boxes"

22 February – 10 March 2024

The exhibition "Icons painted on ammo boxes" is organized by the Polish Institute in Bucharest and the National Museum of History of Moldova, in partnership with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Chisinau and with the support of the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of Moldova.

The collection presented in Chisinau contains 25 unique icons by Ukrainian artists Olexander Klymenko and Sonia Atlantova, including newer works painted on ammunition boxes used during Russia's current invasion of Ukraine.

The project combines two aspects, at first sight impossible to approach unitarily: the icon and the ammunition box, death and life. "Through our works we want to transform death, the symbol of which is the ammunition box, into life, traditionally symbolized in the Ukrainian icon culture," says Klymenko. In 2014, in response to Russia's first military aggression against Ukraine, Ukrainian artists began painting icons on ammunition boxes. This very original and expressive approach had a very strong impact on the public from the very beginning.

The main goal of the Ukrainian artists is to sell the icons, the amount collected being donated for charitable purposes to the people affected by the war, but especially to come to the aid of the First Voluntary Mobile Hospital in Ukraine, where more than 60,000 people have already been treated since 2014 of patients. According to Klymenko's statements, 97% of the hospital's operating costs were covered from the sale of icons. From the funds obtained from the sale of the works, the artists also support the medical society of the 114th Territorial Defense Brigade and the "Wings of Victory" project, which helps wounded soldiers.

The icons presented in the Chisinau exhibition have traveled around the world, so far being exhibited in 19 countries and in over 150 places, including the European Parliament.

The opening will take place on Thursday, February 22, 2024, at 14.00, in room 1 of the National History Museum of Moldova, which will take place with the participation of the authors of the works. The event is dedicated to the two-year anniversary of the outbreak of Russian aggression against Ukraine.

The exhibition can be visited until March 10, 2024, at the National Museum of History of Moldova, Chisinau, 31 August 1989 street, 121A.