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#Exhibit of the Month

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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.

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#Exhibit of the Month

January 2023

Mirror from Nikolskoe

In the culture of many peoples from ancient times (and to the present day), mirrors have been given a special role in ritual practice, especially funerary ones. For many communities, mirrors, like metal objects in general, served to protect against evil spirits. Mirrors had a dual purpose - a utilitarian one, as a toilet item, and ritual, as an attribute of a magical rite. The latter is explained by the fact that in the ideas of many peoples the soul of a person is connected to his reflection in a mirror or water. Being external to man, the "soul-reflection" is subject to various dangers.

Obviously, belief in the magical possibilities of mirrors is one of the reasons why the owners kept them closed in wooden, cloth, felt or leather cases and pouches. An expensive mirror was placed in the grave along with the deceased for fear that the soul of a living person reflected in it could be carried away by the spirit of the person passed away. On the other hand, to this day, many nations have a tradition of hanging all the mirrors if there is a dead person in the house, so as not to multiply death.

Metal mirrors are quite rare at the dawn of Scythian history, but over time, they were widely distributed in the Classical time or "Herodotus' Scythia" of the 5th-4th centuries BC. Then the mirror became one of the most important toilet items in Scythian burials. In the west of the Pontic steppes, at least 40 mirrors are known, made in Scythian or Greek workshops, 12 of them are stored in the collection of the National Museum of the History of Moldova.

One of the metal mirrors of Greek work was found on the left bank of the Dniester, near the Nikolskoe village, in the burial mound 14. It was found in a burial near a skull, and in addition to a mirror, 114 arrowheads and six golden fish-shaped plaques. The mirror was cast in bronze along with the handle. The mirror diameter is 16.5 cm, handle length with a round extension is 11.5 cm.

Although burial 1 of kurgan 14 was identified as male, 18-20 years old, mirrors are a marker of exclusively female burials. Such bronze mirrors with side handles appear in the middle of the 5th century BC but were most massively distributed during the last quarter of the 5th - the first half of the 4th century BC.



 

 


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#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...

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The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC

 



The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC

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The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
©2006-2026 National Museum of History of Moldova
Visit museum 31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
Phones:
Secretariat: +373 (22) 24-43-25
Department of Public Relations and Museum Education: +373 (22) 24-04-26
Fax: +373 (22) 24-43-69
E-mail: office@nationalmuseum.md
Technical Support: info@nationalmuseum.md
Web site administration and maintenance: Andrei EMILCIUC