Weapons and military equipment - evolution in time

Description

The National Museum of History of Moldova has an impressive collection of weapons of technical, historical and artistic value able to illustrate the evolution of weapons in Europe. The collection, created in the second half of the 20th century through archaeological finds and donations, includes more than 3,000 artifacts from ancient times to the present, covering almost the entire typological range of armaments.

To create a more comprehensive picture of the entire mobile heritage related to the military side, the exhibition offers to the public all types of weapons from the museum collection – Western and Eastern, cold and fire, offensive and defensive – a large part of which is exhibited for the first time. The presentation is made in the evolutionary order in terms of chronology and typology, and brings together a selection of over 600 most representative pieces from this collection.

From a chronological point of view in the exhibition there are presented weapons of prehistoric eras (Palaeolithic, Chalcolithic, Bronze Age, Early Iron Age), the ancient and Roman periods, Middle Ages, Modern and Contemporary times.

Typologically exhibits are divided into the following groups: cold arms (bladed, pole, and thrown), firearms (military, hunting, and civilian), protective gear.

In addition to weapons, the exhibition presents two dummy medieval knights in armor, pieces of military equipment (sword belts, bandoliers, and holsters of the 18th – 20th centuries), uniforms of the 19th – 20th centuries, reconstructed and authentic equipment and uniforms of Russian grenadier and cuirassier (mid-19th century), Romanian cavalry officer (1934), and an officer of the National Army of Republic of Moldova (1994). The exhibition is complemented with engravings, paintings, and photographs depicting soldiers in uniforms of different times, and battle scenes.