#Exhibit of the Month

Christmas bells entered the Romanian cultural space through a long process in which archaic traditions blended with Christian belief and European influences. Long before the holiday of Christmas developed as we know it, metallic sounds played an important ritual role in old communities: they were used to drive away evil spirits, to purify spaces, and to protect people during transitional moments at the turn of the year. These beliefs have been preserved in winter customs such as caroling, the Plugușor, and masked dances, where bells and jingles were indispensable.
With the spread of Christianity, the sound of the bell also acquired a profound religious meaning, becoming an announcer of major feasts and a symbol of the Nativity. Small bells, however, were not originally used as decorations but primarily as functional or ritual objects.
The first decorated Christmas tree in the Romanian lands was the one at the palace of Prince Carol I of Hohenzollern, following his arrival in the Romanian Principalities in 1866. From that moment the tradition took root, and on Christmas Eve princes and princesses invited to the palace would take part in decorating the tree. Among the ornaments used were small metal bells, symbolizing joy, the good news, and divine protection for the home.
In the twentieth century, Christmas bells spread across all Romanian provinces and became a visual emblem of the holiday, appearing in both decorations and carols. Even during periods when religious expression was curtailed, bells remained in people's homes as signs of joy and the continuity of tradition. Today they retain this dual meaning: the echo of ancient beliefs and, at the same time, the announcement of the Birth of Christ - a symbol of hope, light, and the link between past and present.
These tinkling pieces are part of a generous heritage collection at the National Museum of History of Moldova (NMHM), which includes more than 200 cultural items. A substantial contribution to the museum's collection of decorative bells was made by Dorina Raischi, a teacher at School No. 94 in Chișinău, who donated 174 bells, of which around 30 are winter-themed. Made of ceramic, porcelain, glass, and metal, they were brought from different parts of the world and together offer a succinct picture of the global culture of bells. They add a festive note to the home and even to a gift, and it is hard to imagine Christmas without their cheerful tinkling.

Virtual Tour

#Exhibit of the Month

December 2020

Binoculars-shaped vessel from Ciulucani

The artifact was discovered in 1990 near the village of Ciulucani in the Teleneşti District, during the arrangement of a pond. In the same year, the archaeologist Tatiana Todorova carried out excavations in the settlement, which were meant to save part of its area from imminent destruction. The settlement of Ciulucani I is located on the slope of the valley of a stream, a left tributary of the Ciulucul Mic River, 12 km north of the village of Ciulucani.

The vessel belongs to the Cucuteni culture, one of the oldest civilizations in Europe (5200 to 3200 BC), which was named after the eponymous village near Iaşi, where in 1884 the first its remains were discovered. The Cucuteni culture preceded all human settlements in Sumer and Ancient Egypt by several hundred years. The Cucuteni culture (Ukrainian: Trypillian culture) spread over an area of 350,000 square kilometers, on the current territory of Romania, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine.

The Cucuteni settlements had a protourban organization, with houses built of clay on wooden structures. The communities practiced hunting, agriculture and domestic crafts, such as weaving, pottery, and making tools. The predominant colors on Cucuteni ceramics are red, white and black.

The binocular object represents two ceramic tubes joined by means of three bars (bridges) arranged horizontally, being as such composed of two monocles with funnel-shaped ends. The yellow-pink vessel is modeled from a fine clay body and decorated with painted ornament, for which natural black-brown dyes were used. Such a shape had as prototype a similar wooden construction. In some cases the extremities had holes, i.e. forming a whole with the support tube, in other cases, rarer, such as the Ciulucani object, they represent small phials. The evolution of this type of vessels takes place in the classical period of the Cucuteni culture, until the beginning of the gradual degradation of the quality of the vessels of this culture. So far there are no reliable opinions on the functionality of this type of vessel, which are specific only to the Cucuteni culture, but several researchers opt for the assumption that they were used in ritual practice and are among the best chronological and spatial indicators. Each binoculars-shaped vessel discovered so far do not have the same patterns, all of which are unique.

The object has a height of 188 mm, the diameters of the extremities vary from 111 to 112.5 mm, the width of the vessel is 290 mm.

Dating: 4th millennium BC.