#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.

Virtual Tour

International Collaboration

2015

Dr. hab. Elena Ploșnița, scientific secretary of the museum, participated between 22 and 27 February, 2015 at training on museum documentation in Warsaw and Gdańsk, Poland, organized and funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland.

National Museum of History of Moldova in cooperation with the Department Europe-Asia of the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin continued in 2015 (between May 29 and July 5) field archaeological research in the surroundings of v. Sofia, Drochia at the Eneolithic settlement "Petreni" (Cucuteni-Trypillian culture), dated with the 5th millennia BC.

MNIM was partner in project "Early urbanism in prehistoric Europe: the case of Trypillian mega-sites" initiated by the University of Durham, England and the Institute of Archaeology in Kiev, Ukraine. The project had final goal the organization of an international exhibition about the history of Cucuteni-Trypillian proto-cities, which was presented in all project countries. In Chișinău, the exhibition "Trypillian Mega-sites" was on display from September 9 to November 6, 2015.

Based on the agreement with the National Museum Complex "Moldova" from Iași, Romania, the exhibition "Heritage values from the collection of the Museum of Science and Technique Ştefan Procopiu, Iași" was organized at MNIM in the period from September 23 to October 26, 2015.

The National Museum of History of Moldova in collaboration with the Institute of Archaeology „Vasile Pârvan" from Bucharest, Romania, organized the 25th edition of the Symposium of Numismatics on October 29-30, 2015. The event was attended by numismatists researchers from Romania, Ukraine and Moldova.

MNIM has participated in the exhibition "Krieg - Eine Archaeologishe Spuresuche" (War - decoding archaeological traces), open for visiting from November 5, 2015 - May 22, 2016 at the Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte in Halle, Germany. An international team of museums from Germany, Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic and Moldova participated at the organization of the exhibition. Our museum was present with 14 archaeological pieces from the Eneolithic period unearthed during research on the tumulus of Giurgiulești.

Mariana Sîrbu, researcher in the sector Archaeology and Ancient History, participated at the Autumn School for PhD students in ancient history and archaeology in Valea Alunului, com. Boșorod, jud. Hunedoara, România on October 3-11, 2015. The school was organized by the Educational Center of „Dacica" Foundation.

Dr. Natalia Mateevici, researcher in the sector Archaeology and Ancient History obtained a research fellowship for archaeological documentation at the Archaeological School in Athens in the period November 1 - December 1, 2015.

Mariana Vasilache, researcher in the sector of Archaeology and Ancient History, had an archaeological documentation visit at the Prehistoric Museum from Halle, Germany, part of project „Krieg - Eine Archaeologishe Spuresuche", November 1-10, 2015.

#Exhibit of the Month

Ceramic Vessel Set from Bălceana-Hâncești (5th–7th Centuries)

2015

#Exhibit of the Month