#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

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.