#Exhibit of the Month

The exhibited necklace of beads originates from Funerary Complex No. 6 of Kurgan No. 4, excavated in 1982 by Dr. Habil. Eugen SAVA near the town of Taraclia. The beads were found in the chest area of the deceased, indicating that they had been worn as a necklace and had remained in their original position within the funerary assemblage.
The necklace consists of 11 elements made entirely of Egyptian faience. Eight of the beads are spherical and decorated with vertical incisions forming between 14 and 21 raised ribs. Their diameters range from 13 to 20 mm. Two additional elements are scarab representations measuring 23.5 × 19.5 mm, while the final component is a flattened cylindrical pendant bead featuring a central vertical groove and measuring 22 × 9 mm. The objects range in color from light blue to dark blue and violet hues, reflecting the natural deterioration and glaze variations characteristic of Egyptian faience.
Egyptian faience is an artificial quartz-based material coated with an alkaline glaze, typically blue or blue-green in color. It was widely used in Ancient Egypt and later spread throughout the Mediterranean and Pontic regions through trade networks. During the first centuries AD, such objects served as important indicators of cultural and economic contacts between the Mediterranean world and the communities of the North Pontic region.
Owing to its typological, technological, and symbolic characteristics, the Taraclia necklace is an exceptionally valuable artifact for the study of intercultural relations, the circulation of prestige goods, and the funerary practices of the Sarmatian communities during the first centuries AD (1st-2nd centuries AD).

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

The compartment of Ancient and Early Medieval History

(Permanent Exhibition “History and Civilization”)

Roman period is represented by various items, including a series of Roman bronze and clay vessels found in a Sarmatian tomb near the village of Olanesti, among which there is a rarity - a clay pot in the shape of a ram.

The compartment of Ancient and Early Medieval History

Multiple gray wares, adornments made of semiprecious stones, bone, and shells, clasps of precious metals belong to the 1st - 3rd centuries AD.

As a result of invasions occurred during the Migration Period and disappearance of the Santana de Mures - Chernyakhov culture (the 3rd - 4th centuries AD) the present-day territory of the Republic of Moldova was terribly devastated. This led to degradation of all spheres of economic and social life of the natives. In the 6th century Slavic tribes moving to the Balkans penetrated the territories inhabited by tenuous Romanic population. Under their influence there occurred changes in the material culture of the Romance.

The settlements are small. Population dwelled in huts which were half-depth in the ground and heated by stone ovens. The main concerns were agriculture and animal husbandry. A certain place in everyday life there had crafts. In contrast to the previous period, potteries were made by hand without using a potter's wheel. Most of the tools are made of bone, horn, and stone. Metal objects are very rare, but not missing.

Archaeological materials from the 6th - 7th centuries AD discovered during investigations of many settlements and necropolises in the Prut-Dniester area reflect the life and activities of the Eastern Romance and aliens in a period marked by major social, economic, and cultural transformations.

Early medieval era is represented by material culture of the first pre-state formations (the 9th - 12th centuries) and early states (the 13th - 14th centuries): vessels, tools, adornments and clothing items, pectoral crosses.

These findings testify to the existence of certain exchange relationships of the Eastern Romance with the neighboring communities, especially the Byzantine Empire. Among these items there are amphorae and vessels made on the potter's wheel, bronze adornments, coins, etc.