#Exhibit of the Month

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.

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Events Archive

Opening of the exhibition „Memory of deportations”

July 3, 2024

On July 3, 2024, the National Museum of History of Moldova organized the opening of the "Memory of Deportations" exhibition, dedicated to the commemoration of 75 years since the second wave of mass deportations in the Moldavian SSR.

The exhibition approach reveals aspects of the history and memory of the victims of Operation "South" from the night of July 5-6, 1949, bringing to the attention of the visiting public documentary materials, testimonies, personal objects, works of art, thematic video materials. The exposed vestiges elucidate the context in which the organization of the second wave of deportations took place, the transportation and displacement of Bessarabians in special settlements in the eastern regions of the USSR, as well as examples of recent practices honoring the memory of the victims of the totalitarian-communist regime during the SSR period Moldavian.

Today, more than three decades after the signing of the Declaration of Independence (1991), the complex and systematic valorization of the memory of the victims of the totalitarian past in the Republic of Moldova remains a desire of decommunization and democratization. The local communities of memory in the villages and cities of the Republic of Moldova offer examples and models worthy of following in the direction of knowledge of history and memory. However, the symbolic dimension of the commemorative actions comes to constitute for the memory of the victims of the communist regime one of the main forms of (re)knowing and intelligently assuming the traumatic past.

The exhibition presents the recourse to history and memory as an act of symbolic justice brought to all the victims of Operation "South" of July 5-6, 1949 in the Moldavian SSR, thus contributing to the building of a European culture of memory in the society of the Republic of Moldova.

The "Memory of Deportations" exhibition is opened to the large audience between July 3 - August 3, 2024, in the upstairs hall of the National Museum of History of Moldova (Chisinau municipality, str. 31 August 1989, 121A).

#Exhibit of the Month

Stone Battle Axe Discovered at Aluniș, Rîșcani District

Opening of the exhibition „Memory of deportations”

July 3, 2024

#Exhibit of the Month