#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.

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Library „Tyragetia"

Ion Tentiuc

Contributions to the History and Archaeology of the Prut-Dniester Area: The Sites of Durlești and Molești

Series Biblioteca „Tyragetia” XXI, Chișinău, 2012, 288 p. ISBN 978-9975-80-667-1.

The monograph Contributions to the History and Archaeology of the Prut-Dniester Area: The Sites of Durlești and Molești includes the results of systematic archaeological investigations of important sites located in the central part of the Prut-Dniester region. The research carried out at Durlești and Molești has provided a rich and valuable archaeological material. Along with the remains of the Neolithic, which led to the identification of a new type of dwelling previously unknown in the East-Carpathian area, there were investigated several Getae dwelling and burial complexes of the 4^th - 3^rd centuries BC.

In addition, the research managed to substantially replenish the documentary sources for the study of the Early Middle Ages (5^th - 7^th, 8^th - 10^th, and 11^th - 13th AD); specifically identify the material and spiritual culture of the population belonging to the Romance population of the central part of the Prut-Dniester area; elucidate the problems concerned the Răducăneni culture - the delimitation of its chronological framework based on stratigraphic successions of cultural horizons and discovered remains; highlight the impact of external factors on the Răducăneni culture as a result of sedentarization of several groups of nomads. All this indicates the continuity of the local Romance population in the second half of the first millennium and the first centuries of the second millennium AD.

Scientific publication of the results of archaeological investigations conducted in the sites of Durlești-Valea Babei and Molești-Râpa Adâncă is one of the major achievements of the contemporary research. This paper enriches considerably the scientific information on the development of local communities from prehistory to the early medieval period.

The work is part of major research of the ancient and medieval history of the Prut-Dniester, East-Carpathian, and South-East European area, offering the researchers - history teachers, students, and all who are interested in our history - an important, scientifically valuable and very timely material for the study.