#Exhibit of the Month

One of the great technical achievements that revolutionized the idea of time and space, opening a new era in the history of communication, is telegraphy. It is based on the transmission of electrical signals through a cable over long distances, allowing people to communicate instantly. The telegraph spread very quickly and a network of wires stretched around the world.

In 1837, the American painter and physicist Samuel Morse invented the first electromagnetic device for telegraphy, patented in 1840. To send messages by wire, Morse developed in 1838 a simple code of dots and dashes, which represented the letters of the alphabet, known as "Morse code ".

Both Morse code and the telegraph machine were improved over time, with the telegraph becoming the most widespread system of communication and information transmission for more than a century, until the advent of the Internet. The telegraph system consisted of a series of stations repeaters along the transmission line route. Each station had an operator who received and transmitted messages by telegraph. The Morse machine transmitted about 25 words per minute, which were recorded in code on a paper tape. The operator in charge of transmitting the message would decode it and write it on paper using a special typewriter.

In Bessarabia, the telegraph entered in 1860: on April 8, the Bender telegraph station began its activity, and on April 24, the one in Chisinau, following the construction of the first Odesa-Chisinau-Leova telegraph line. Currently, telegraph services have been discontinued. The only ones who still use coded communication are radio amateurs.

The Morse telegraph machine shown comes from the Osinoostrovsky electrotechnical plant, Soviet Union, and dates back to 1934. The exhibit was restored by Mihail Culașco.

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Research Research Projects

"Identification, documentation, research, and promotion of the museum collections" (2011-2012)

Currently the museum realizes a project on identification, documentation, research, and promotion of the museum collections (2011-2012).

The museum's property as a part of national heritage is an important factor for preservation of the identity and cultural and national values, sustainable development, social harmony, and intercultural dialogue in the country and abroad. The museum's property is indispensable for a balanced and complete life; it must be documented, researched, preserved and made accessible to the public and scientists. Research and presentation of the values are a means to guarantee everyone the right of access to resources of cultural values for the better understanding of the national and world history and culture, both at present and in the future. Knowledge and the scientific and public use of museum collections should be recognized a natural consequence of the role and place of museum institutions in contemporary society.

The project is focused on two main objectives:

- Scientific documentation of the archaeological collections, which involves the identification of their origin, identification of the conditions under which they were found, establishing their cultural and historical (museum) significance. This documentation is essential and fundamental for the scientific research, conservation, and knowledge of archeological artifacts;

- Research of the collections of documents, which will result in the new forms of publication of the research results: scientific catalogs, directories, encyclopedic editions) and also contribute to the democratization of the museum and broadening of the public access to museum property values.

The project will contribute to the development of quality standards for scientific records of museum values, to scientific and cultural dialogue on the national and international level based on the reporting of the research results, and to awakening in the society the consciousness of cultural and historic heritage values.

Rescue archaeological research at Piata Veche of Chisinau in 2012