The History Museum of Moldavia (Muzeul de Istorie a Moldovei) is one of the museums that make up the Moldavia National Museum Complex of Iași and one of the four museums housed in the Palace of Culture in Iași. The other museums are the Ethnographic Museum of Moldavia, the Art Museum of Iași, and the Ștefan Procopiu Science and Technology Museum.
History Of The Museum
The Museum of Antiquities was established in 1916 and operated from a building next to the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University. In 1954 the museum changed its name to the History Museum of Moldavia and in 1955 it moved into the Palace of Culture. After having operated independently for a while it became part of the Moldavia National Museum Complex of Iași in 1971. It is located on the ground floor of the western wing of the palace.
The museum was set up as a pilot project and formed the basis of the establishment of other museums in Moldavia. The History Museum of Moldavia also administers the Union Museum and the Mihail Kogălniceanu Memorial Museum in Iași, the Alexandru Ioan Cuza Memorial Palace in Ruginoasa, and the Cucuteni Archaeological Site.
Museum Collection And Exhibits
The museum covers the history of Moldavia from the Paleolithic era, through the medieval times to the modern history up to World War II. The exhibitions are spread out over 20 rooms with a total space of 1.470 square meters. The total collection of the museum consists of 48,000 objects from various fields, including archaeology, decorative art, ancient books and documents, numismatics, medals, and uniforms.
The first room you’ll enter is the court room of the former County Court that was based in the palace. In another room you can find maquettes of the former Princely Court and of the city, wherease another rooms offers a view of the original foundations of the building trough a glass floor. One of the oldest objects in the museum is a 70,000-year-old mammoth skull from the Middle Palaeolithic Era.
Visiting The Museum
To visit the museum you can buy an individual ticket for the museum alone, or get a combi ticket for all four museums and access to the other rooms of the Palace of Culture, including the Hall of the Voivodes and the Henri Coandă Hall.
