The artifact is a battle axe made from magmatic rock (diabase) of gray-brown color. It was accidentally discovered in 1966 within the territory of Aluniș village, Rîșcani district. Based on its morphological characteristics, the artifact can be attributed to the Catacomb culture (29th-22nd centuries BCE).
The axe features a massive, elongated naviform body with slightly pronounced shoulders, a short and narrow edge that is flat and circular in cross-section. The blade is slightly curved. The hole was drilled in the maximum width of the object. It is circular in shape with a diameter of 2.2 cm. The surface of the artifact is meticulously polished, worked with great care, and shows no signs of damage or chipping.
Dimensions: Length: 20.0 cm; Maximum width: 8.4 cm; Edge diameter: 5.0 cm; Blade width: 7.0 cm; Weight: 2.3 kg.
Stone battle axes are characteristic of the Catacomb culture communities and are most often found as grave goods, deposited in tombs. Their presence in funerary complexes suggests a multifaceted functionality: weapons, social symbols, and ritual objects. Initially used as weapons, the axes became social symbols for their owners, later acquiring votive significance when deposited in tombs to serve the deceased in the afterlife.
The social symbolic function of stone battle axes is indicated by the high-quality rocks used for their manufacture and the exceptionally meticulous craftsmanship. The large dimensions of the axe from Aluniș support this hypothesis and distinguish it from other examples.
The discovery of stone battle axes outside a funerary complex may indicate their votive deposition. It is difficult to imagine that these exceptionally well-crafted pieces, made from high-quality rocks transported over great distances, could have been abandoned or lost accidentally. It is far more likely that they were deposited for magical-religious purposes, a possibility that may also apply to the stone axe discovered at Aluniș.
“Requiem for the Romanian Peasant: the Peasants and Communism”
Opening: May 18, 2020
They have always been on the battlefield. They fought with the Tatars, with the Turks and the Russians, with droughts and floods, with village headmen and activists, with tax collectors and quotas. They have always been defeated and victorious, for their sacrifice always nourished the continuity of history. However, in the fight against the Communists, they lost completely, because it destroyed not only their lives, but also their roots. Without land, peasants lost their essence. They went to wander, left for the cities, leaving the land and the household to women and children, and the harvest to students and soldiers. Those left to work in the fields began to "steal" from public property (which was actually their own property). Today the sacrifice of the peasants revolted in 1949-1950 remains a romantic episode. The final uprisings of 1960-1962 resemble medieval sieges. The day of April 1962, when collectivization was decreed, resembles the fall of Constantinople. Just as the paintings of Hagia Sophia illustrate a world foreign to the one to come, the peasants in the reality of our time seem martyrs without halos. Killed by bullets or ideology, they are the most numerous and innocent prey of communism.
The exhibition "Requiem for the Romanian Peasant: the Peasants and Communism" was organized in March 2009 by the International Centre for Studies into Communism, part of the Memorial to the Victims of Communism and to the Resistance - Civic Academy Foundation on the occasion of the of the 60th anniversary of the forced collectivization of agriculture and the beginning of the disaster for the Romanian peasantry (Plenary of the Central Committee of the Romanian Workers' Party on 3-5 March 1949). The curator of the exhibition was the late Romulus Rusan, director of the International Centre for Studies into Communism.
By means of archival documents, genuine photographs and evidences of oral history, the exhibition reconstructs the world of a Romanian village, which disappeared as a result of forced collectivization imposed by the communist regime. One of the main elements of the exhibition is a map of the numerous peasant uprisings against collectivization and quotas that took place in 1949-1962.
The Timiş and Arad branches of the Association of Former Political Prisoners in Romania, the County Museum of History in Alexandria and many witnesses of the events, some of which became historians, also collaborated in the creation of the exhibition. The graphic design was made by the architects Octavian Carabela and Marius Marcu-Lapadat.
The exhibition was presented in several cultural institutions in Bucharest, Alba Iulia, Arad, Alexandria, Baia Mare, Brăila, Iaşi, Cluj, Timişoara, Drobeta-Turnu Severin, Oradea, Satu Mare and other cities in Romania and at the B.P. Hasdeu State University in Cahul.
The exhibition can be seen in the hall of the second floor of the National Museum of History of Moldova from May 18, 2020.
The artifact is a battle axe made from magmatic rock (diabase) of gray-brown color. It was accidentally discovered in 1966 within the territory of Aluniș village, Rîșcani district. Based on its morphological characteristics, the artifact can be attributed to the Catacomb culture (29th-22nd centuries BCE)...
The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
The National Museum of History of Moldova takes place among the most significant museum institutions of the Republic of Moldova, in terms of both its collection and scientific reputation.
31 August 1989 St., 121 A, MD 2012, Chisinau, Republic of Moldova
