Radio România Internațional

Tag: archaeology

  • Behind the scenes at Romania’s National Museum of History

    Behind the scenes at Romania’s National Museum of History


    Fragment. The Experience of restoration.
    It is the title of an exhibition hosted by Romania’s National Museum of History,
    located in the Old City Centre. The exhibition is on until mid-June. Visitors
    can have the chance to know the museum’s restoration laboratories, whether we speak
    about painting, metal or wood, or whether it’s about ceramic, paper or textile
    materials/fabric. It is an incursion in history but also a behind-the-scenes glimpse
    of the exhibits, there where the items are stored, maintained and restored by
    dedicated and passionate people. We were lucky enough to speak to restorer Sorina
    Gheorghiță, a collaborator of Romania’s National Museum of History’s painting restoration
    laboratory. Here she is, giving us details on the work behind the exhibited
    paintings but mainly about a restorer’s work as such:

    Sorina Gheorghita:


    Since
    2013, when the easel painting restoration lab was accredited as part of Romania’s
    National Museum of History, around 25 paintings have been restored. Many of the
    paintings are authored by renowned Romanian painters such as Luchian, Tonitza,
    Ressu, Stoica, Teodorescu-Sion. The Paintings depict major historical events,
    war scenes, mainly, focusing on the War of Independence or World War One. A major
    work which has been restored is a painting by Aman, titled The Proclamation of the
    Union, it is the Union of the Principalities, the depicted scene is a very familiar
    one, it is a scene that usually goes with the event.


    But what are the restoration stages for
    a painting? How does the whole process unfold?

    Sorina Gheorghita:


    Speaking about the
    steps to be taken for the restoration of a painting, the very moment the
    decision has been taken for that particular painting to be restored, it had
    been examined already by the preservation person responsible for the painting warehouse,
    jointly with the restorer, in some cases, and a common decision has been taken,
    to that end. The very moment the
    painting is taken to the restoration lab, the painting undergoes a research process for which using various means and operations are being used, direct light, lateral light, ultra-violet light, we sometimes
    have no choice other than using infrared light or X-rays.
    We resort to analyses, the laboratory of Romanian National Museum of History’s
    is extremely well-provided, giving us a hand whenever needed…Then, as soon as
    all those investigations have been made and the structure of the painting layer
    has been accurately detected, the level of degradation and the cause of the degradation
    are also specified. Then the proceedings are set, for a detailed research proposal,
    whereby all the required operations are presented for the painting to be
    restored, that particular research and the ensuing intervention proposals are
    presented before a sitting restoration panel which gives its go-ahead for the operation.
    The restoration process comes to a close, that’s for sure, while the
    freshly-restored work is again presented before a panel, whose job is to check
    if all the steps had been taken, that were put forward for the restoration work,
    also checking the respective work’s post-restoration condition, then the work
    returns to the storage room or is being displayed as part of an exhibition, like
    the one we’re having right now. The most rewarding surprises emerge, in fact, while
    we’re doing the cleaning, which is a spectacular operation, whether we remove
    the varnish alone and the surface layers. A great many details resurface, which had not been visible before, or the colors, which turn out to be a lot livelier.
    Also, if, in time, the painting was covered in certain re-painting layers, we
    can have the surprise of coming across some details that had become absolutely
    invisible, otherwise, or even signatures.


    As part of the « Fragment »
    exhibition, an important section is spectacularly represented, the metal
    restoration laboratory. Moreover, as an absolute first for the lay public,
    bronze and iron items are shown, in an exquisite display, items that are part
    of the archaeological site that was discovered in 2012 in Tartaria, lying in the
    central Romanian county of Alba.

    Archaeologist Corina Bors:


    The archaeological site in
    Tartaria, the Western Tartaria Bridge was unearthed in the spring of 2012. The
    discovery occurred as part of a series of large-scale or pre-emptive archaeological
    research, carried on the occasion of the construction of a highway along the
    Mures River valley. The two deposits, with bronze and iron objects, were
    discovered in an extremely special archaeological context, namely the western boundary
    ditch of the Hallstattian habitat, the objects were stored in two pots made of
    clay, with archaeologists taking samples of all that. The first deposit, labeled Tartaria 1, has, judging
    by what we have been able to find so far, and you will see why, more than 400
    items made of bronze and iron, dating, broadly speaking, from the 19th
    and the 18th centuries BC. The second one counts 50 objects, also dated
    for the same timeframe.


    But which of the items that have been discovered
    are the most precious, archeologically and historically?

    Corina Bors:


    The items of
    exception that were found in all those prehistorical votive deposits, among
    them, there is a chest lace piece, a lavish harness kit made of a tongue bit with
    a mouthpiece, but also several phalera, the golds medals offered to the Romanian
    soldiers as a prize and worn around the neck, as well as other everyday items,
    made of bronze. In the Fragment exhibition which is still open at the Romania’s
    National Museum of History, you can admire, separately, the seven-part necklace,
    but also, in a one-of-a kind display, the harness kit placed on a real-scale
    horse bust, as well as a series of adornment objects, day-to-day objects,
    belonging to a male set, also displayed on a man’s bust. And, last but not the
    least, a necklace made of bronze beads is also displayed, again, a piece which
    is extremely rare for the so-called middle Hallstatt age from the area of the Danube
    River basin. The discovery was made by archeologists and all the fragments kept
    in those deposits could be sampled, with utmost care, so organic materials were
    also sampled, which made it possible for the findings to be accurately dated.






  • Adamclisi

    Adamclisi

    The place known as Adamclisi is in the highlands of Dobrogea, in the south east of Romania. It is famous due to the monument built nearby by Roman emperor Trajan, and by the remnants of the ancient fortification there. Both the monument and the fortification bear the same name in Latin, Tropaeum Traiani, closely tied to the transformation of Dacia into a Roman province after 106. In 1977 a museum was built here to house original artifacts from the monument. It was built by Emperor Trajan in memory of the soldiers who fought to conquer Dacia. We have more details from Mariana Petrut, a conservation expert with the Adamclisi museum:



    Mariana Petrut: “Emperor Trajan ordered a monument built on the site of the most important battle, in honor of victory. What the emperor wanted with the monument was to provide what can be described as a movie in stone of the battle between the Dacians and the Romans. The monument was built between 106 and 109 AD, but it could not withstand the centuries, and started to decay. The causes are unknown. We can only make suppositions at some earthquake in the past, or human intervention. What we do know is that in the 19th century archeologists started to research the monument systematically.



    This monument was built two kilometers outside the walls of the fortification that the Romans built on the site of a former Dacian fortification. For six centuries after the end of the Dacian-Roman wars, the region prospered, and became a dynamic urban center in Dobrogea, reaching the status of Roman municipality. Its role is confirmed by the presence of the Tropaeum Traiani monument, with its iconic cylindrical base and the cone roof with a two-faced human feature on top. It was 10 meters taller than Trajan’s Column in Rome, which shows the importance that the emperor attached to this monument, symbolic of Roman rule both north and south of the Danube. The project is believed to be the design of famous architect Apollodorus of Damascus, but the workers were soldiers and military engineers. In the 19th century, the ruins were researched mainly by archeologist Grigore Tocilescu.



    Mariana Petrut: “In the 19th century, all that was left of the monument was its core. The stone blocks depicting the battle, placed on the outside of the monument, had fallen off, and were scattered around the core. They were largely recovered, part of them having been buried in the ground, or from the surface. Others were recovered from local peasants, who used them to build wells. They did not know the value of the monument, and used the stone where they needed it. However, archeologists managed to recover most of them, and take them to the local museum. Archeologist Grigore Tocilescu even managed to recover the dedication inscription. We have fragments of it in the museum. Based on this discovery we were able to establish that this was indeed the Tropaeum Traiani monument.



    Archeological findings allowed experts to reconstitute the original aspect of the ancient monument. The stone blocks that were found show that the walls of the altar had carved into them the names of the Roman soldiers and their places of origin, and that, in addition to the altar, a mausoleum was erected behind it, about 50 meters away, the Mausoleum of the Roman General. Due to these discoveries, Tropaeum Traiani was inaugurated once again in 1977, along with the museum in the village of Adamclisi, housing the original pieces discovered starting in the 19th century, when the first archeological digs started.


    (translated by: Calin Cotoiu)

  • The Museum of History and Archaeology in Constanta

    The Museum of History and Archaeology in Constanta


    The city expansion works that began in Constanta in 1877 led to the discovery of important archaeological artifacts, which gave a boost to research into the history of this ancient city, first founded by the Greeks under the name of Tomis. Archaeological exploration gradually uncovered pottery, statues, inscriptions and coins of great importance, which first entered private collections. This was the first step towards the creation of a history and archaeology museum in Constanta. In 1878, Remus Opreanu, Dobrogeas first Romanian prefect, took the initiative to display these collections in a museum housed by the Prefecture building. At first, the small-sized objects and 15 sculptures were displayed in the prefects own office, while 27 larger pieces were exhibited along the alley in front of the building. Unfortunately, a fire destroyed the Prefecture in 1882, so the collection of the new museum had to be relocated. It therefore moved from one place to another before reaching todays headquarters in Ovid Square. The initial collection of the Museum of History and Archaeology consisted of various donations, says the director of the museum, Gabriel Custurea:



    “Among other things, the museums collection contains donations. Among the donors I would mention Mihail Sutu, one of the founders of archaeology and numismatics in Romania, an exceptional scholar who also published his works in France and Germany in the 1890s. The finds uncovered during excavations made in the Constanta port as part of the modernisation works initiated by engineer Anghel Saligny at the beginning of the 20th century are now part of the museums collection. Records point to around 30 objects discovered during these excavations. There were many people at that time who were interested in local culture and wanted to have such a museum. The collections were even hosted by the Town Hall building. The building that currently houses the museum used to function as the Town Hall, while todays exhibition rooms are the same rooms that housed the museum between 1928 and 1938. After 1938, the museum found a home in the building that today houses the citys Aquarium, on the beachfront, opposite the Casino. The museum remained there until the 1950s when it moved to the Episcopal Palace. Finally, it moved to todays headquarters in the Ovid Square in 1977.”



    A landmark of Constantas old area, Ovid Square is dominated by a statue of the Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso, who was exiled by emperor Augustus to Tomis. The Museum of History in Constanta prepares to celebrate 2,000 years since the death of Ovid, the author of “The Letters from the Black Sea”. Some of the events will be held together with a museum from the French city of Toulouse. Gabriel Custurea tells us more:



    “Ovid spent the final 9 years of his life here, in the ancient city of Tomis, from where he sent letters to Rome describing his sad life in exile, letters which were ignored by emperor Augustus. It is believed that Ovid was buried at the gates of Tomis, in the 1st century AD, on the site of what is today Ovid Square.”



    Apart from its permanent collection found at its headquarters in Constanta, the Museum of History and Archaeology also manages other historical sites in the Constanta county, some of which are not open to the public. Gabriel Custurea:



    “These sites cannot be visited because it is very difficult to reach them. One example is a painted hypogeum tomb that can only be accessed through a narrow slope. The tomb is covered by earth, so as to be better preserved. We try to maintain a constant level of humidity and temperature. Fortunately, the nearby street is restricted to heavy vehicles, so there are no vibrations to damage the tomb. Other sites managed by the museum are the small churches in Murfatlar dug into the side of a limestone hill, so they are very fragile. Each church consists of a small room of 6-8 square metres. These sites are not open for visitors, because they are very vulnerable to variations in temperature and humidity. Unless we protect them, they will be gone. Their protection, however, involves funding that we try to secure through European projects.”



    “The Exhibit of the Month” is one of the projects initiated by the museum in an attempt to attract more visitors. One recent example was a Byzantine amphora dating from the 5th century AD found at sea at a depth of more than 100 metres.