#Exhibit of the Month

Bronze cauldrons of the Scythian time are rare in the Northern Black Sea region, especially on its western borders. Therefore, those few items found on the territory of the Republic of Moldova occupy a worthy place in the collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova (NMHM). In particular, in the archaeological exhibition, two bronze cauldrons are displayed, discovered near the village of Nicolscoe in 1988 in burial mounds no. 14 and 15. In addition, in 2020, two bronze cauldrons without any accompanying documents were found in the collection of NMHM; however, they were visually identified as coming from various excavations in the Low Dniester region, such as burial mound no. 45 near Dubăsari and burial mound no. 1 near the Răscăieții Noi village.

The object presented as the exhibit of the month is a little-known find discovered in 1979 in barrow 1 near the village of Răscăieții Noi in the Ștefan Vodă district. In addition to its outstanding size (about 10 m high), this mound is known for discovering a cast bronze finial in the Scythian animal style on its surface in 1953. However, by the beginning of excavations, the locals had damaged part of the mound and a Scythian cast bronze cauldron was found near it. The cauldron was seriously damaged by mechanical impact, as a result of which the rim was deformed, and the walls, with one preserved vertical handle, were bent inwards. Fragments in the upper part of the body and one handle have been lost. The total reconstructed height of the cauldron is 24 cm (excluding the handles), the reconstructed diameter of the hemispherical cauldron is 30 cm, and the weight is 6.5 kg. In 2020, data on the chemical composition of the bronze cauldron alloy were obtained, revealing that it was cast from an alloy of almost 95 per cent copper. Unfortunately, due to the loss of information on the context of the discovery of the cauldron at Răscăieții Noi, it is impossible to link its discovery with one or another Scythian burial of the barrow. Moreover, the grave goods of other Scythian burials of Barrow 1 do not allow them to date below the 4th century BC. However, the cauldron with vertical handles from Răscăieții Noi most likely belongs earlier. This may be indicated by a bronze finial from the first half of the 5th century BC, which was found on this barrow in 1953. In addition, burial 7 from the nearest excavated barrow 2 at Răscăieții Noi, containing a plaque depicting a rolled predator (a copy of which is also on display at the NMHM), belongs to the mid- 5th century BC. Thus, there is a high probability that the cauldron from Barrow 1 at Răscăieții Noi is associated with the late Middle Scythian period or the mid-5th century BC.

Scythian bronze cauldrons in the west area are concentrated in three main regions: Bukovina-Podolia, the Lower Danube, and the Lower Dniester. Some Scythian cauldrons have no reliable archaeological context. Nevertheless, in combination with the same "stray" finds like the Scythian statues, the finds of Scythian cauldrons mark the Scythian presence, most likely not earlier than the late 6th century or even the turn of the 6th-5th centuries BC. The cauldrons first appeared in Bukovina, where they have been known since the middle of the 7th century BC. Bronze cauldrons (with their carriers) entered the steppe region 150-200 years later, and the "military" burials that appeared in the western steppe regions were no earlier than the middle of the 5th century BC. Most burials with cauldrons (and, apparently, the stray finds) are dated back to the second half of the 5th century BC. Then, in the early 4th century BC, their quantity was reduced, and after the first quarter of the 4th century BC, they completely disappeared from the cultural practice of the population of the steppes of the North-Western Black Sea region.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

„Testimonies from the Gulag. The memory of the victims of the totalitarian-communist regime"

4 July - 31 August 2019

The National Museum of History of Moldova opened on July 4, 2019, the exhibition „Testimonies from the Gulag. The memory of the victims of the totalitarian-communist regime".

The establishment of the Soviet occupation regime in the territory left of the Prut River had dramatic consequences that are still visible in the present in the Moldovan society. The politics of repression and forced Soviet actions began with the adoption in the period between August 26 and November 4, 1940 of three decisions on the recruitment of 59,500 people, mostly from rural areas, as workforce for the carbon and steel industry in USSR. On June 12-13, 1941, in 6 Bessarabian counties incorporated into the Moldovan Soviet Socialist Republic, 4,507 persons were arrested and 13,885 persons were deported. The second wave of deportations took place on July 5-9, 1949, on the basis of a top secret decision of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, where 35,796 persons were deported to Siberia and northern Kazakhstan, of which 11,889 were children. On the night of March 31 to April 1, 1951, the third wave of deportations followed, this time on confessional grounds, with the repression of 2,617 people, including 842 children, members of religious organizations considered illegal and anti-Soviet. The cereal requisition policy, established by the Council of People's Commissars of the Moldavian SSR and the Central Committee of the Communist (b) Party of Moldova of April 9, 1945, obliges the peasants to surrender to the state the required cereal quotas - the so-called postavka. Failure to comply with these decisions implied punishment of peasants according to Art. 58 and 58-1 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, and the famine in the years 1946-1947 was caused by the abusive policy of the Soviet state of collecting peasant grain. The number of people who died from hunger and illness between December 1946 and August 1947 ranges from 115,000 to 250,000; adding to these 350,000 other victims of malnutrition; during the famine were recorded 39 cases of cannibalism.

The photo-documentary exhibition "Testimonies from the Gulag: the memory of the victims of the totalitarian-communist regime" presents the testimonies of the victims and survivors of political repressions and mass deportations during the Soviet period. The images and documents exhibited from the collections of the National Museum of History of Moldova and the documents valorized within the State Program "Historical recovery and valorization of the memory of the victims of the totalitarian-communist regime in the Moldavian SSR during the period 1940-1941, 1944-1953" present to the general public the horrors of the totalitarian-Soviet regime and the memory of this tragic period in our people's history.

The exhibition is devoted to the sad anniversary of the second wave of deportation of July 5 to 9, 1949, and to the memory of all the victims of the totalitarian-communist regime.

The exhibition was developed in the framework of the project "The culture of memory for the societies in process of democratic transformation: promotion of best practices between Lithuania and the Republic of Moldova", supported by the Development Cooperation and Democracy Promotion Programme of the Ministry of External Affairs of the Republic of Lithuania and the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania to the Republic of Moldova.

Institutional partners:

National Museum of History of Moldova
Institute of History
Center for Excellence Institute ProMemoria, Moldova State University
State University „Alecu Russo" from Bălți
State University „B.P. Hasdeu" from Cahul

* The term GULAG is used from the Russian language with the original meaning of the Main Administration of Labor Camps on the territory of the USSR, which has considerably expanded its content after 1989 by designating the emblematic area of detention in any form, including deportations, prisons, forced residence regime, restriction of the right to choose the place of work and living, etc.