#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

#Exhibit of the Month

December 2022

Postcards dedicated to winter holidays

"Back in the old days, people used to send each other greetings..."

We are on the threshold of the winter holidays, when we are concerned with the small joys and pleasant surprises, we want to give our loved ones, along with the spoken or written greeting. The latter - the handwritten card sent by post - is not so popular today, because modern information transmission technologies have replaced these "small cardboard patches", which exuded not only the vintage fragrance, but also the individuality of the recipient who sent it. Over time, the congratulations had the role of messengers, which often "replaced" the visits intended to "personally" congratulate the close ones, friends, acquaintances, also symbolizing a gesture of esteem and appreciation from the sender to the recipient.

The predecessors of greetings were business cards, which appeared for the first time in the middle of the 18th century in Paris, where, around the holidays, they were sent by couriers or personally handed to relatives, friends, acquaintances. The year 1843 is considered the year of the "birth" of greeting cards with the theme of the winter holidays, the first Christmas card being ordered by Henry Cole and illustrated by John Horsley in London, then multiplied with the help of lithography, which resembled traditional business cards. some works of art, some were with gold or silver borders, even when the phenomenon became an industry, they delighted with magical, warm images, so that the message written to the recipient brought even greater joy. Congratulations differed from other cards postcards not only as an image and message, but also through a series of signs-symbols characteristic of the event, each carrying an individual message. These were illustrations of the traditions and customs that existed in the respective country, remaining constant, regardless of the country, the representation of children and family, the string of images being supplemented with biblical scenes. With the advent of photography, they began to be printed postcards with mounted scenes. No less interesting were the greeting cards with everyday scenes reflecting the theme of Christmas, which had as an image, in addition to the traditional ones, the festive table, children opening the gifts brought by Santa Claus, companies and funny couples, sometimes not very sober, the decorated Christmas tree, etc.

The heritage of the National Museum of History of Moldova has a rich collection of illustrated postcards, which also includes greeting cards for various occasions. Those exhibited during the winter holidays - Christmas and New Year - are only a small part of the collection, they circulated in Bessarabia a century ago, being shipped from the Russian Empire, Romania and other countries. Browsing through vintage postcard albums, we transport ourselves to the magical world of winter holidays with our loved ones, savor the vintage perfume and ask ourselves: when was the last time we sent a handwritten Christmas or New Year's card in the mail?