#Exhibit of the Month

The Roman bronze situla comes from a collection of archaeological artifacts confiscated at customs and transferred to the holdings of the National Museum of History of Moldova in 2009. Its place of discovery remains unknown.

A situla (Latin for "bucket") is a metal vessel-usually made of bronze-shaped like a pail and equipped with two movable handles at the top, traditionally used for mixing wine with water. The handles are attached to the vessel via two decorated ears that are welded to the rim.

The body of the situla is truncated-conical in shape and features two decorative bands with small circular patterns formed by hammering, located just below the rim.

Its base is double-layered: the inner bottom is hemispherical and hammered, while the outer bottom is flat and lathe-made. The outer base is welded to the inner bottom, serving as the vessel's foot-support.

This object was crafted using a combination of casting, hammering, and partial lathe-finishing. Dimensions: Maximum height - 31.7 cm; Maximum diameter - 22.8 cm; Base diameter - 13.5 cm

Situlae of this type originated in the Roman Empire and were later adopted by various ancient peoples, including those from the northwestern Pontic region.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

The compartment “EVOLUTION OF MAN IN PREHISTORIC TIME”

(Permanent Exhibition “History and Civilization”)

The section reflects the aspects of the development of human communities from the Stone Age to the Early Middle Ages. The main thematic components imply diverse aspects of development of the societies, which inhabited the area between Prut and Dniester since the oldest times, and reflect indissoluble relations between people and the environment and evolutionary development of various forms of economy based on cattle-breeding, cultivation of cereals, and practicing of crafts.

Exposed archaeological artefacts (from blades, scrapers, axes, spearheads made of flint, stone, or bone to household pottery, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic vessels, metal arms, objects of worship as well as diverse objects found in hoards) give the visitors a possibility to acquaint themselves with proto-urban civilizations of Cucuteni-Tripolye and Santana de Mures-Chernyakhov, which are extremely significant due to the forms of cultural expression and contribution to historical evolutionary processes in South-Eastern Europe.

Archaeological collections used in the exhibition reveal the emergence, development, and culture of different populations, from the 1st millennium B.C., including the Greek-Roman time; spreading of Christianity in the eastern Carpathian region; complex processes of formation and consolidation of Romanic societies in the period of the great migration of peoples.