#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.

Virtual Tour

Exhibitions

„The clock over time”

May 18, 2017 – May 18, 2018

The exhibition is the result of research of the collection of watches from the National Museum of History of Moldova. The 150 watches displayed in the exhibition for the public reveal the evolution of the means of measuring time and of their makers as this activity was a constant concern and passion of man since Antiquity. The most valuable piece in the exhibition is the clock, as a heritage object, remarkable both by the sophisticated technique and the value of the materials used, as well as by the personality of their owners. It is a pioneering exhibition; a large part of the collection of watches (more than two hundred pieces) is being exhibited for the first time. The collection on display consists of various types of watches classified according to the method of operation and use.

The objects in the exhibition are authentic, original, part of them have undergone through restoration and conservation procedure, and therefore some of them are functional. Chronologically, the pieces in the exhibition are dated to the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century.

Typologically, the most attractive are the wall and floor clocks from the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, whose mechanisms are housed in impressive boxes (furniture type), made by well-known watchmakers and companies like Gustav Becker, Junghans, Philip Haas, Le roi à Paris, Lenzkirch, and others. In the ambiance of the museum space are exhibited watches of historical value: the wall clock from the Chisinau Real School (by M. Karcevski), the wall clock from the headquarters of the first working-class club in the city of Balta, the clock at the Railway Station From the town of Tighina (Bender). A special value has the wall clock which belonged to the family of Ivan Şpiller, a well-known watchmaker from Chișinău with Austrian origins, who in the middle of the 19th century had one of the largest and most important clock stores in the city. He was one of the craftsmen who "took care" of the clock on the Arch of Triumph during the years 1842-1849 and 1853-1862.

A very interesting history have also the office and fireplace clocks, followed by pocket watches, originally considered as a men's accessory, later replaced by wristwatches.

A special place in the museum exhibition is held by the watches of memorial value: the watch belonging to Zinaida Radu-Maiorova (1890-?) and Dumitru Remenco (1895-1940), Bessarabians participants in the Great War (1914-1918), the watches of academician Nicolae Dimo (1873-1959), writer Petrea Darienco (1923-1976), well-known archaeologist and museographer Vsevolod Marchevici (1917-1997), musicologist Serafim Buzilă (1937-1998) and others.

The exhibition is complemented by mini-vintage interiors and photographic images.