#Exhibit of the Month

The metal vessel was likely used as a funerary urn. It was found together with another vessel, shaped like a shell and used as a lid for the urn, in a landslide along the road within the Yahorlyk Nature Reserve, Dubăsari District. The village of Yahorlyk is located at the mouth of the stream of the same name, a left tributary of the Dniester River.
The vessel belongs to the Hemmoo type (or Eggers 63) and is a rare find in the late ancient sites of the 2nd-3rd centuries AD. Researchers consider this type of vessel to be of Italic, Gallo-Italic, or Mediterranean origin, frequently used as a funerary urn or burial inventory by the Bastarnae. Upon discovery, the vessel was reportedly filled with "earth and burnt bones."

The vessel was found together with a brass sheet vessel that had undulated or fluted walls. It has a height of 14.9 cm (without the base ring). The diameter of the vessel's body is 19.5 cm, and the total height is 16.2 cm. The rim of the vessel flares outward with a diameter of 20.5 cm. The vessel is made from thin brass sheet, only 0.1 cm thick. The upper part of the vessel is modestly ornamented. The middle of the rim, on the exterior, has a shallow horizontal line incised. The transition from the rim to the body is marked by a wide groove, 0.3 cm in width. From this groove, the rim thickens to 0.25 cm. On the upper part of the rim, on two symmetrically placed sides, semicircular handles with stepped bases were cut out. The handles are 2.2 cm in height and 5.1 cm in width. Including the "steps" at the base, the handles are 6.1 cm wide. In the middle of each handle, a circular elongated hole was made for the attachment of a handle, measuring 1.2 x 1.5 cm.

The ornamentation on the upper part of the vessel's body consists of two bands, each formed by two parallel incised lines, spaced 0.2 to 0.4 cm apart. The interval between the two bands is 0.9 cm. The vessel's handle is semicircular, mobile, fairly thick, rectangular in cross-section (0.8 x 0.9 cm), and made from a rounded brass bar. The ends of the handle are thinned to 0.6 cm and widened to 0.9 cm over a length of 2.6 cm, resembling bird heads. On the median part of the bar, incised marks resembling Roman numerals IX and XI are present. The bottom of the vessel was made from a separate brass sheet, worked by pressing on a lathe. Evidence of this process is the indentation from the lathe's fixing rod, preserved in the central part of the vessel's bottom. Surrounding this indentation is an ornament consisting of two bands of concentric lines, with diameters of 1.8 cm and 5.9 cm, respectively. The lower part of the vessel is raised and rests on a ringed base, formed by shaping the vessel's walls and bending the piece that formed the actual bottom. This base has a diameter of 8.7 cm.

For the North-West Pontic and East-Carpathian regions, several scattered sites or points where fragments of metal vessels were discovered, used as funerary inventory or urns, should be mentioned. These include discoveries from the funerary complexes of flat necropolises dated to the first centuries AD, at Hansca-Lutăria II and Dănceni-Ialoveni. Here, excavations identified noble graves with fragments of bronze vessels with metal handles, similar to the vessel from Yahorlyk.

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#Exhibit of the Month

August 2023

Panel. The State Coat of Arms of the Republic of Moldova

Authors: Gheorghe Vrabie and Maria Dogaru. Drawing: by Gheorghe Vrabie; original; 50 x 80 cm, collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova

The State Coat of Arms of the Republic of Moldova as a heraldic identity symbol of the new state is the result of extensive discussions attended by the press, scholars, plastic artists, politicians of all colors, as well as the broad masses of the population. This process started immediately after the approval on April 27, 1990 of the State Flag - the tricolor.

On May 1, 1990, the republican press announced the start of the contest for the development of the state coat of arms. More than a hundred scientists and visual artists participated in the competition, presenting around 130 projects. On May 12, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet created a special Commission for the contest, chaired by the Speaker of the Parliament Mircea Snegur.

Following the Commission's decision, on July 18, 1990, the official newspaper "Moldova Socialistă" published 18 coat of arms projects for public discussion, which were displayed in the foyer of the Supreme Soviet building.

After two months of heated public discussions, on September 19, two projects, selected by the Competition Commission, signed by the painters Gheorghe Vrabie and Andrei Mudrea, were published on the pages of "Sovereign Moldova". After the support of Gh. Vrabie's project by the National Commission of Heraldry, Genealogy and Sigilography of the Romanian Academy in the meeting of October 23, 1990, he was joined by the Romanian heraldist Maria Dogaru.

In the meeting of October 30, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the SSR decided to support Gh. Vrabie's project, and on November 3, 1990, the new state coat of arms was adopted by law.

According to paragraph 3 of article 12 of the Constitution of the Republic of Moldova, the State Coat of Arms has the following official description: "The State Coat of Arms of the Republic of Moldova represents a horizontally cut shield, with the upper part colored red, the lower part blue, charged with the head of bour having between the horns an eight-rayed star. The bour's head is flanked to the right by a five-petalled rose, and to the left by an outlined crescent. All elements represented in the shield are gold (yellow). The shield is placed on the breast of a natural eagle carrying in its beak a golden cross (crusaded eagle) and holding in its right claw a green olive branch and in its left a golden scepter".