#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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Scientific conference with international participation “75 years since the Operation «South»”

Chișinău, 2-3 July 2024

During July 2-3, 2024, the works of the scientific conference with international participation "75 years since the Operation «South»" took place, an event organized by the National Museum of History of Moldova, in cooperation with the Institute of History of the Moldova State University.

The first day of the conference brought together researchers from Chisinau, Bucharest and Vilnius, who presented scientific communications regarding the elucidation of the deportations of the summer of 1949 from the perspective of history and memory of the tragedy in current research, and the speakers presented aspects such as the phenomenon of deportations in the Soviet repression system (dr. Virgiliu Bîrlădeanu), the deportations from the Moldavian SSR during the compact collectivization of agriculture (dr. Valentin Burlacu), the hate speech and the ideological preparation of the deportation operation from July 5-6, 1949 (dr. hab. Elena Negru), the evolution of the concept "kulak" in the Moldavian SSR, 1940-1950 (dr. hab. Ion Şișcanu), the sovietization of the Bessarabian village: the Operation "South", the collectivization of agriculture and social policies in the Stalinist period (dr. Dumitru Lisnic), the realization of the Operation "South" in the district Edineţ, MSSR (dr. Nicolae Fuștei), the deportations of the Bessarabians in Tomsk region (Russian Federation) from the perspective of the Memory Expeditions (dr. Octavian Țîcu), the extermination of the members of the Sfatul Țării. Case study of Constantin Bivol (Natalia Mafteuță).

On the second day of the scientific event, during the plenary session, communications were presented by outstanding specialists from the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of Lithuania, and Romania, highlighting the common features of the manifestation of the totalitarian communist regime and the importance of studying the phenomenon of deportations in order not to admit it again in the future.

With a word of greeting in front of the participants of the event came the General Director of the National Museum of History of Moldova, Mr. dr. hab, prof. univ. Eugen Sava who mentioned the systematic effort undertaken by the National Museum of History of Moldova toward the scientific-museographical valorization of history and memory of the former deportees and political prisoners from the Moldavian SSR period. On behalf of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of Moldova, the greeting was addressed by the attaché of the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania Mr. Liudas Gintautas Dabkus, who referred to the common historical experience regarding the suffering caused by the Stalinist deportations, but also the resistance opposed to the Soviet regime of occupation, emphasizing the important role that belongs to today's society in the perpetuation of democracy, freedom, respect for human rights and the common effort in building a European culture of memory.

The proceedings of the plenary session were followed by the inauguration of the thematic exhibition of the National Museum of History of Moldova "Memory of the deportations", presented by dr. Ludmila Cojocaru.

The scientific-practical session "Narrative heritage of the Stalinist deportations: scientific-museographical valorization initiatives and exchange of good practices" convened representatives of the museographic community from the Republic of Moldova and Romania, concerned with valorizing the history and memory of totalitarian-communist deportations and repressions, who presented communications on projects, initiatives and good practices carried out by their institutions.