#Exhibit of the Month

Buckles (paftale) are an almost indispensable element of traditional women's dress in the Southeastern European area, particularly in the Balkans, and have been in use over a long period, from the 14th to the 20th century.
The word pafta is of Turkic origin-possibly entering the language via Iranian influence-derived from the Persian word bafta, meaning "woven," which evolved in Turkish to signify "plate." Today, the term is used in nearly identical forms in Romanian (pafta), Bulgarian (пафта), Serbian (пафте), and some Aromanian dialects (pafta), designating functional and ornamental clothing accessories used to fasten belts, girdles, or sashes, crafted from various materials and decorated using different techniques.
The three buckles decorated in the polychrome enamel technique, preserved in the collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova, belong to the South-Danubian tradition and are dated to the late 19th - early 20th century.

Each buckle consists of two identical trapezoidal parts, their surfaces divided into three roughly equal registers, adorned with stylized vegetal motifs forming a metal lattice into which enamel is poured. The two parts extend into sharp angles at the ends, forming a triangle with the edge of the last decorative register, similarly ornamented. The enamel used to fill the floral motifs is black, turquoise, white, orange, green, yellow, and burgundy. The entire decorative field is framed by a beaded border.

On the reverse, both components retain a copper band riveted along the edge, used to fasten the ends of the belt. The fastening system, made by interlocking the hinges of the two parts and secured with a movable pin attached by a chain to a clasp fixed on one of the buckle pieces, is concealed by a rectangular plate (riveted with three pins to the body of the piece), with narrow edges ending in sharp angles, decorated in the same style and technique. Additionally, it features three circular settings with notched edges bent inward to hold centrally placed red and green glass paste. These settings are framed by a radiant, notched band.

The symbolism of the color palette encodes meanings and symbols, chosen for their believed magical powers. Red has always represented love, affection, and protection against curses and the evil eye; white symbolizes purity and spiritual and physical cleanliness; blue is symbolically associated with infinity, morning, new beginnings, and transformation; green represents destiny, hope, prosperity, balance, and rebirth, being linked to nature's revival each spring and to life itself.

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.