#Exhibit of the Month

The main parts of the camera include the body, bellows, lens, and viewfinder system. The body consists of two lacquered walnut wood frames, joined by a folding black textile bellows that allows the necessary extension for focusing. On the front panel is the Agfa anastigmat lens, mounted in a Compur-type shutter produced by F. Deckel in Munich. It features a foldable "brilliant" viewfinder for both portrait and landscape orientation. It uses glass photographic plates coated with a photographic emulsion, mounted in walnut wood holders, with a frame size of 9x12 cm.
The walnut wood model, considered the flagship "Agfa Isolar Luxus," was designed by the A.H. Rietzschel factory in Munich, acquired by AGFA in 1925, which continued producing this type of camera under its own name until the late 1920s.
The piece was restored by Mihail Culașco, Restoration Department of NMHM.
Brief History of the Camera
The history of the camera spans 200 years, evolving from the camera obscura to today's digital devices. Key milestones include: the first permanent photograph in 1826 by French physicist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, using a wooden box and a plate coated with bitumen of Judea; the invention of the first photographic process - daguerreotype - in 1839 by Frenchman Louis Daguerre, marking the official birth of photography; the invention of calotype, based on the negative/positive principle, by British physicist and chemist Fox Talbot; the invention of wet collodion plates by Englishman Frederick Scott Archer and dry glass plates by Richard Leach Maddox and John Huds Bennet; the introduction of flexible roll film and the launch of the first Kodak camera by American inventor George Eastman; the release of the first 35 mm film camera by German company "Leica"; the launch of the first instant camera "Polaroid," invented by American Edwin Land. Finally, starting in 1975, this path led to the digital photography revolution. Each successive step made cameras smaller and faster, significantly improving image quality.
The first photographic studio in Chișinău was opened in 1854 by Eduard Glewski, and before World War I, there were already about 100 photography studios in Bessarabia.
The collection of the National Museum of History of Moldova includes over 30 cameras, made in Austria, Germany, France, USSR, Japan, and China, dating from the late 19th century to the 2000s. Among them are folding bellows cameras, BOX-type cameras, single-lens reflex (SLR) and twin-lens reflex (TLR) cameras, as well as digital (DSLR) cameras.

Virtual Tour

May 2022

Pickaxe hammer

Deer antlers, as well as bones, teeth and shells of mollusks, belong to the category of hard materials of animal origin, which for a long time served as raw materials for prehistoric and protohistoric communities to make tools, weapons, containers, handles, as well as objects of prestige (sceptres) or adornments (necklaces, pendants, clothing accessories), certainly bearing a symbolic load.

The National Museum of History of Moldova has a valuable collection of products made of deer antler, the chronological framework of which covers a very wide period of time, from the Paleolithic era to the late Middle Ages. Based on this, and also taking into account the significance of the beginning of May (May 1 – International Labor Day), we present to our visitors a revolutionary type of tool, very useful, which is directly related to the development of agriculture and prehistoric societies. Antler pickaxes are the tools that contributed to what we call the Neolithic revolution, when there was a transition from hunter-gatherer hominids to sedentary people, agriculturists and cattle breeders, depending on the specifics of the region. Cucuteni agricultural human communities have a long tradition of exploiting Cervus elaphus (deer) resources, especially antlers.

The object comes from the Brânzeni III – Țiganca settlement (Edineț district), a site discovered in 1968 by the archaeologist Nicolae Chetraru, attributed to stage CII of the Tripolye culture. An unaffected part of the site was completely explored in 1970-1972 by Vsevolod Markevich; during the research 37 surface dwellings with platforms were found, revealing a new cultural aspect within the Cucuteni culture – Brânzeni, a cultural and chronological phenomenon that marks the beginning of the final stage of the Eneolithic era, the end of the 4^th millennium BC.

The pickaxe hammer, dual-functional product made of the basal part of the main axis of the antler, cleaned and polished, without traces of the basal part, without rosettes and other secondary horn beams. The surface with traces of cuts is polished, in some places with strong luster. The object has a round transverse hole, slightly oblique, with a cylindrical section, located in the middle, and has a pronounced bluntness, chips and a longitudinal crack from antiquity. The active parts – the head and slightly oblique tip, completely kept – are relatively well preserved, with traces of wear and cracks in places due to intensive use.

These traces give us a history of this object, which was originally, most likely, an axe hammer, intended to split, cut, and strike, but with the wear of its blade turned into a pickaxe hammer, used both for percussion activities and for loosening the earth. The object was used as a working tool, but most likely also as a weapon.

Dimensions: L.: 113 mm; W.: 56 mm; thickness: 44 mm: Hole diameter: 20x22 mm.