Cucuteni Culture is one of Europe’s oldest cultures, rivalling with ancient Egypt or Sumerian culture. The culture was widespread, occupying today’s territory of Moldova, North-East Muntenia, South of Transylvania and Basarabia.
Cucuteni Culture is the culmination of a civilization in Europe between 3,500-5,000. Chr. The performances reached by the Cucutenian population are absolutely amazing, being necessary for them to be known by all Romanians, especially by young people.
Six to seven thousand years ago, the Cucutennians had upstairs houses and high-rise houses on pillars, their communities living in settlements of up to 20,000 houses, planimetric arranged, which tells us that it was also a well organized and administratively society. The Cucutenian dwellings were up to 200 square meters, being divided, suggesting that each room had a certain use.
Cucuteni culture has remained in history with its ceramics, unique in Europe. The Cucutenian ceramics were of incredible quality, retaining their qualities very well until today, after 6-7,000 years of staying in the earth – the paste is of exceptional quality, hard to match, and the colours, still alive, made with natural pigments, is an enigma for specialists.
The Cucuteni Museum of Eneolithic Art was inaugurated in the summer of 2005 and is the first Cucuteni museum in Romania. It exhibits around 300 pieces of the Precucuteni – Cucuteni Culture period, included in the „treasure” category of the national cultural heritage. The characteristic feature of the Cucuteni Culture is the trichrome painted ceramic (white, red and black), which demonstrates a true sense of colour and shapes.
The Cucuteni Museum of Eneolithic Art comprises two exhibition halls. In the first hall downstairs there are exposed decorative art objects on the pots, and in the second floor upstairs there are exhibited figurative-plastic, anthropomorphic and zoomorphic art objects from all stages of the Precucuteni-Cucuteni Cultures.
To make the most of the existing heritage of Cucuteni Culture, since 1990, so far, 14 volumes have been published in this area and several national exhibitions have been organized. Also in 1997, an international exhibition, unique to this culture, was organized.
In Piatra Neamt has been working for over 10 years the Cucuteni International Research Center for Culture as well.
Mandru Eduard
Voivodeanu Alex