The exhibition The Prehistoric Site on Cetățuia at Costișa

From November 2011 to March 2012, the Piatra Neamț Museum of History and Archaeology will host the exhibition “Situl preistoric de pe Cetățuia de la Costișa”. Organised by the Neamț County Museum Complex in collaboration with the “Vasile Pârvan” Institute of Archaeology in București and with the participation of the “Iulian Antonescu”

Cetățuia at Costișa in Neamț County, occupying a commanding position on the Bistrița terrace, now appears as a mound visible from a great distance.

Although the first investigations were carried out during the interwar period by Constantin Mătasă and Radu Vulpe, the excavations that brought the site to public attention were undertaken by a team led by Alexandru Vulpe in 1959, 1960 and 1962. Their work introduced the concept of the Costișa culture into archaeology, referring mainly to certain types of pottery from the Middle Bronze Age.

Costișa exhibition 2011, Neamț County

Research continued, and the investigation of the site on Cetățuia is now nearing completion. Recent excavations have helped establish the site's stratigraphy and chronology and interpret the nature of its archaeological deposits, through both the information they provided and some remarkable objects discovered here.

These objects include the bone cylinder, hair ring and anthropomorphic figurine from the Costișa layer, the anthropomorphic vessel and offering vessels from the Monteoru layer, the vessel from the collective tomb dating to the Early Bronze Age, and the rich collection of Eneolithic anthropomorphic figurines, all on display in the exhibition.

The exhibits reconstruct the site's chronology and the typology of the main categories of objects for each archaeological culture represented: pottery, tools, weapons and ornaments made of stone and bronze, belonging to the Monteoru, Costișa, Cucuteni (phase A) and Precucuteni (phase III) cultures.

The three-dimensional objects on display are accompanied by explanatory texts and illustrations showing visitors scenes from the excavations and archaeological features in situ. In the centre of the exhibition space, alongside the exhibits described above, a reconstruction of the archaeological deposits on Cetățuia helps visitors understand the site's horizontal stratigraphy.