#Exhibit of the Month

Manufactured in 1902 by AG vorm Siedel & Nauman in Dresden, Germany.

Dimensions: Length - 38 cm, Width - 35 cm, Height - 20 cm. Weight - 16 kg. It entered the museum collection in 1984, transferred from the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History.

The typewriter features a standard carriage mounted on ball bearings and rollers, along with a keyboard equipped with 42 keys. These contain two complete sets of Latin and Cyrillic alphabets, punctuation marks, numbers, and mathematical symbols, enabling the typing of 126 characters. Beneath the metal casing, the type bars are arranged in a fan-like pattern, holding embossed characters and ink ribbon rollers. When the keys are pressed, the type bars strike the inked ribbon, imprinting characters onto the paper tensioned in the machine's roller system.

The side panels are elegantly decorated with refined cast-iron elements in the Art Nouveau style, displaying the brand name - "Ideal." The Polyglott model, featuring a bilingual keyboard patented in the United Kingdom by Max Klaczko from Riga, Latvia, was produced between 1902 and 1913, marking the first typewriter capable of writing in two languages. The "Ideal Polyglott" typewriter was actively sold in the Russian Empire and gained significant popularity in Poland, Bulgaria, and Serbia.
The typewriter - a mechanical device used for printing text directly onto paper - ranks among the most important inventions of the modern era, as it revolutionized communication. From the late 19th century to the early 21st century, it became an indispensable tool, widely used by writers, in offices, for business correspondence, and in private homes. The peak of typewriter sales occurred in the 1950s when the average annual sales in the United States reached 12 million units. In November 2012, the British Brother factory produced what it claimed to be the last typewriter, which was donated to the Science Museum in London.
The advent of computers, word processing software, printers, and the decreasing cost of these technologies led to the typewriter's disappearance from the mainstream market, turning it into a museum exhibit.
June 23 marks Typewriter Day, commemorating the date when American journalist and inventor Christopher Latham Sholes patented his typewriter. This day celebrates the simple yet revolutionary device that has become history, as well as the remarkable literary achievements it has enabled since 1868.

Virtual Tour

Publications

Library „Tyragetia"

Natalia Mateevici

Greek Amphorae in Barbaric World of North-Western Coast of Pontus Euxinus in 6th – Early 2nd Centuries B.C.

Series “Biblioteca “Tyragetia” XIV, Chisinau, 2007, 284 p. ISBN 978-9975-80-080-8.

The given monographic study is the first synthesis work on the development of trade relations between the ancient Greek civilization and the indigenous tribes of the area between the Eastern Carpathians and the Southern Bug.
The work is focused on study and research of a single category of artifacts of Greek imports – amphorae, the special vessels for storage and transport of liquids, especially wine and olive oil, the main categories of Greek-barbarian trade. Being also the largest category of Greek imports in the barbarian world, amphorae accurately reflect all stages of development of Greek-barbarian trade in ancient times.

In the paper there was studied and published amphora material from the collections of institutions from three countries: the Republic of Moldova, Romania, and Ukraine.

Using an impressive number of original sources makes this work an exhaustive, thereby raising its value to science.
Study of Greek amphorae and their spreading in the barbaric world enables researchers to keep a relatively accurate dating of archaeological sites of the natives of the north-western Black Sea area.

The text of the work is complemented with a great number of illustrations which include images of the vessels themselves and 18 maps. There is also the first catalog of Greek amphora stamps found in this area that was compiled by the author and contains about 370 stamps.