History Museum exhibits 20,000-year-old beads

An exhibition of adornments worn by the Moldovans' ancestors is organized by the la National Archeology and History Museum. The expo is organized on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the museum and will be opened till March 2009. According to a scientific researcher of the museum, Natalia Mateevici, there are some 850 items exhibited. “The pieces were considered to be amulets first, or distinctive signs showing the position of the owner within society. But later they became adornments worn both by women and men. The primeval people used to make adornments from animal bones, shells, while the oldest beads exposed are over 20,000 years old and are made shells,” Natalia Mateevici has told Info-Prim Neo. The exhibition has items of gold, silver: rings, earrings, bracelets, beads, necklaces, buttons, hair pins, combs, mirrors. There are also buckles of bone, copper, shells, glass, bronze, iron, semi-precious stones. The cherries on the exhibition's cake are adornments made of copper, coral, shells, bones and gold discovered in tombs near Giurgiulesti (South) and the golden and silver items found in Scythian tombs on the Nistru's both banks. Among them the well-known torqves of gold weighing some 800 grams. The treasure of golden items from Mocra, belonging to Sarmatian tribes, are presented for the first time. In additional to the items from the pre-historical and ancient periods, the exhibition shows collections of medieval adornments, and silver items from Echimauti, Alcedar, Giurgiulesti, Saharna Veche and Cricova.