#Exhibit of the Month

The metal vessel was likely used as a funerary urn. It was found together with another vessel, shaped like a shell and used as a lid for the urn, in a landslide along the road within the Yahorlyk Nature Reserve, Dubăsari District. The village of Yahorlyk is located at the mouth of the stream of the same name, a left tributary of the Dniester River.
The vessel belongs to the Hemmoo type (or Eggers 63) and is a rare find in the late ancient sites of the 2nd-3rd centuries AD. Researchers consider this type of vessel to be of Italic, Gallo-Italic, or Mediterranean origin, frequently used as a funerary urn or burial inventory by the Bastarnae. Upon discovery, the vessel was reportedly filled with "earth and burnt bones."

The vessel was found together with a brass sheet vessel that had undulated or fluted walls. It has a height of 14.9 cm (without the base ring). The diameter of the vessel's body is 19.5 cm, and the total height is 16.2 cm. The rim of the vessel flares outward with a diameter of 20.5 cm. The vessel is made from thin brass sheet, only 0.1 cm thick. The upper part of the vessel is modestly ornamented. The middle of the rim, on the exterior, has a shallow horizontal line incised. The transition from the rim to the body is marked by a wide groove, 0.3 cm in width. From this groove, the rim thickens to 0.25 cm. On the upper part of the rim, on two symmetrically placed sides, semicircular handles with stepped bases were cut out. The handles are 2.2 cm in height and 5.1 cm in width. Including the "steps" at the base, the handles are 6.1 cm wide. In the middle of each handle, a circular elongated hole was made for the attachment of a handle, measuring 1.2 x 1.5 cm.

The ornamentation on the upper part of the vessel's body consists of two bands, each formed by two parallel incised lines, spaced 0.2 to 0.4 cm apart. The interval between the two bands is 0.9 cm. The vessel's handle is semicircular, mobile, fairly thick, rectangular in cross-section (0.8 x 0.9 cm), and made from a rounded brass bar. The ends of the handle are thinned to 0.6 cm and widened to 0.9 cm over a length of 2.6 cm, resembling bird heads. On the median part of the bar, incised marks resembling Roman numerals IX and XI are present. The bottom of the vessel was made from a separate brass sheet, worked by pressing on a lathe. Evidence of this process is the indentation from the lathe's fixing rod, preserved in the central part of the vessel's bottom. Surrounding this indentation is an ornament consisting of two bands of concentric lines, with diameters of 1.8 cm and 5.9 cm, respectively. The lower part of the vessel is raised and rests on a ringed base, formed by shaping the vessel's walls and bending the piece that formed the actual bottom. This base has a diameter of 8.7 cm.

For the North-West Pontic and East-Carpathian regions, several scattered sites or points where fragments of metal vessels were discovered, used as funerary inventory or urns, should be mentioned. These include discoveries from the funerary complexes of flat necropolises dated to the first centuries AD, at Hansca-Lutăria II and Dănceni-Ialoveni. Here, excavations identified noble graves with fragments of bronze vessels with metal handles, similar to the vessel from Yahorlyk.

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Library „Tyragetia"

Ion Tentiuc

The population of Central Moldova in the 10th-13th centuries

Biblioteca „Tyragetia” XXVIII, Chişinău, 2017, 323 p. ISBN 978-9975-80-903-0; 978-9975-87-323-9.

The monograph represents an important synthesis of the historical, social-economic, political, demographic and cultural processes from the development of the first regional and state-level formations of the Romanian population in the Carpathian-Nistrian area in the 10th-13th centuries. The book is based on a thorough research of archaeological and written documentary sources (Byzantine, Scandinavian, Arabic and Old Russian), of the critical approach of historical-archaeological concepts regarding the population that lived in the forest steppe East-Carpathian area. Besides the topo-planigraphic research of settlements, fortified structures and of housing and burial complexes, the book approaches systematically and integratively the basic occupations - agriculture, animal husbandry and crafts, of which, by magnitude, dynamism and economic importance, iron metallurgy is distinguished. The phenomena related to the development of transit trade and monetary circulation are analyzed in full. The presence of tool and weapon deposits, silverware hoardings with Islamic and Byzantine coins and ornaments, the increase in the number and diversity of types of iron weapons, are related to the penetration and stationing in the region of Scandinavians, as well as craftsmen, soldiers and merchants, which transit the space from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea on old river trade routes, attracted by the fast and wealth of the great economic, political and cultural centers of the time - Byzantine Constantinople and Baghdad of the Muslim caliphate.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Chapter I. HISTORIOGRAPHY

1.1. Soviet historiography

1.2. Romanian historiography

Chapter II. SETTLEMENTS, DWELLINGS AND HOUSEHOLD ANNEXES

2.1. Topography, planography and stratigraphy of settlements

2.2. Characteristics of dwellings

2.3. Household annexes (hearths, ovens, auxiliary pits)

Chapter III. MAIN OCCUPATIONS

3.1. Agriculture and animal husbandry

3.1.1. Agriculture
3.1.2. Animal husbandry

3.2. Crafts and auxiliary occupations

3.2.1. Metallurgy
3.2.1.1. Acquiring iron ore
3.2.1.2. Installations and remnants of metallurgical activity

3.2.2. Ironwork
3.2.2.1. Ironwork tools
3.2.2.2. Iron products
3.2.3. Processing of copper and bronze
3.2.3.1. Molds and metal casting vessels
3.2.3.2. Pieces of colored metal
3.2.4. Pottery
3.2.4.1. Ceramic manufacturing technology
3.2.4.2. Ceramic burning installations
3.2.4.3. Ceramic forms
3.2.5. Other crafts (working wood, stone, leather, bone, fibers)
3.2.6. Auxiliary activities (hunting, fishing, harvesting)

3.3. Trade and coin circulation

3.3.1. Imported ceramics
3.3.2. Glass and glass paste articles
3.3.3. Coins and coin circulation
3.3.3.1. Islamic coin
3.3.3.2. Byzantine coin
3.3.3.3. European coin

IV. SPIRITUAL LIFE, FUNERAL PRACTICES

4.1. Spiritual life