#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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Publications

Library „Tyragetia"

Eugen Sava, Elke Kaiser

Поселение с «зольниками» у села Одая-Мичурин, Республика Молдова: (археологические и естественнонаучные исследования) / Die Siedlung mit „Aschehügeln” beim Dorf Odaia-Miciurin, Republik Moldova. Archäologische und naturwissenschaftliche Untersuchungen

Series “Biblioteca „Tyragetia” XIX, Chișinău, 2011, 532 p. ISBN 978-9975-80-525-4.

The Settlement with „Ash Pits” near the Village of Odaia-Miciurin, the Republic of Moldova

This study presents the results of an interdisciplinary scientific research conducted at the Late Bronze Age site near the village of Odaia-Miciurin in the Drochia District of the Republic of Moldova.

The book was published in two languages (Russian and German) and contains 532 pages with the text, 105 figures, 55 color photographs, 19 diagrams, and 29 tables.

Table of Contents:

Preface

I. Introduction

II. History of research

II.1. The main stages and results of research of the settlement

II.2. The settlements of the Eneolithic and the Bronze Age in the micro-region of the Bălți Steppe according to aerial photographs and surveys (Vyacheslav Bikbaev)

III. Excavations

III.1. Hillock №1

III.2. Hillock №17

III.3. Hillock №16

III.4. Hillock №21

IV. Materials of the Noua Culture

IV.1. Pottery

IV.2. Bronze artifacts

IV.3. Bone and horn artifacts (Peggy Morgenstern)

IV.4. Stone and flint artifacts

IV.5. Artifacts of fired clay

V. Materials from other periods

V.1. Findings of the Eneolithic (Vyacheslav Bikbaev)

V.2. Finds from the Late Antiquity and the Late Middle Ages (Valeriu Bubulici)

VI. Natural scientific investigations

VI.1. Paleozoological investigations (Michael Hochmuth)

VI.2. Anthropological data (Bärbel Heußner)

VI.3. Paleobotanical investigations

VI.4. Soil investigations (Michael Facklam)

VI.5. The absolute dating of 14C Data

VI.6. Analysis of soil samples and ceramics (Malgorzata Daszkiewicz, Gerwulf Schneider)

VII. Conclusions

VII.1. Results of the interdisciplinary investigations

VII.2 Model of the emergence of "ash pits"

VII.3 The internal structure of the settlement

VII.4. The Odaia-Miciurin settlement in the settlement system of the Noua-Sabatinovka type

Abstract

Bibliography

List of Abbreviations

Annex 1 to Chapter IV.3. Bone artifacts (Peggy Morgenstern)

Annex 2 to Chapter VI.5. Documentation of the 14C analyses performed in the Leibniz-Labor of the Christian-Albrechts University of Kiel (Pieter Grootes)

Annex 3 to Chapter VII. On the origin of "ash pits" on the Late Bronze Age settlements by the results of soil-chemical and mineralogical analyses (Vitalii Demkin)