National Museum of Romanian History, Bucharest

1. Our visit

The museum building is also impressive from the outside. The main facade has steps along its entire length and a portico supported by 10 Doric columns.
The ticket office is on the ground floor, 50 meters to the right of the entrance, in a majestic hall.

2. Stories from the past. Virtual journey in vanished landscapes.

On the ground floor, to the right of the ticket office is this first temporary exhibition. We learn about archaeological landscapes and artifacts discovered at Axiopolis (Cernavoda), Capidava, Carna, Nufaru and many others I hadn't even heard of, including the Cherven Fortress in Bulgaria that I visited last year.

3. Toy Museum

A big, big attraction is the Toy Museum, located in the continuation of the first exhibition, to the left in 2 large halls open to display games and toys from the communist period, which those of us who played with them, remember and exclaim: I had that! I saw many smiles on the faces of those who visited this space. At the entrance is an old Herstal vending machine. The area also includes a philatelic museum.

4. Dacia. The last frontier of Romanity.

We return to the huge lobby on the ground floor, center left. We follow a labyrinthine route that leads us to another large hall. This temporary exhibition is organized by era: The Iron Age, Terra Dacorum, Pax Romana, At the Gates of Empire, Terra Christiana, Barbarians and Empire - a journey of a millennium and a half.
Show objects and maps.

5. Copy of Trajan's Column

We follow the signs to the lower level to a 2-level space with a huge opening on the upper level, where there is a copy of Trajan's Column in Rome.
Trajan's Column is one of the most famous ancient monuments. It was erected in 113 AD and illustrates in over 100 scenes the two Dacian-Roman wars of 101-102 and 105-106 that led to the conquest of Dacia and its transformation into a Roman province and then to the formation of the Romanian people by mixing the Dacian and Roman populations.
The Column's plinth is 5.5 meters wide. The Trajan's Column is the Romanian people's book of genesis, written in stone forever.
As an ancient symbol of the Roman origins of the Romanians, Trajan's Column in Rome has been of great interest. The journey of the Ardean peasant Badea Cârțan, who walked all the way to Rome to see Trajan's Column, is a historic one. Found by passers-by, but also by a journalist, resting at the base of the Column, the headline "A Dacian has descended from the Column!" appeared in the press at the time.

A life-size copy of the Column was made in Rome in the 1940s and brought to Bucharest in 1967.

6. Lapidarium

The Lapidarium presents 165 exhibits representative of the entire Romanian area. It highlights the Greco-Roman period, the Late Roman period and the Romanian Middle Ages. The exhibition is located around the copy of Trajan's Column.

On the left is the role of Maria Rosetti, the militant female symbol of modern Romania, during the pașoptistas period (1848) and after. Mary Grant, of Scottish-French origins, later married to C.A. Rosetti when she came to Bucharest, campaigned with her husband for the freedom and rights of Romanians.

7. Historical Treasure

The side staircase from the Column Hall leads to the most spectacular part of the museum, the Historical Treasury. Here it's wow. Historical treasure contains over 3,000 exhibits.
It is made up of several hoards discovered on the Romanian territory: Agighiol (4th century AD), Peretu (4th century AD), Apahida (5th century), Velt (5th century), Dinogetia (11th century), others,
We see figurines, objects of worship, ornaments, jewelry from the treasuries of Moigrad, Turnu Magurele, Galesu, Persinari and others.
The highlight is The Treasure of Pietroasa (5th century) with the play The hen with the golden chickens, but displayed outside the hoard space.
We are impressed by the Greco-Roman Gospel (17th century), an archiepiscopal mitre (18th century), Queen Elizabeth's crown (1881) and
Queen Mary's crown (1922).
Other objects are from the early goldsmith's workshops, we note daggers (17th century AH), falere (15th century AH), a diadem (14th-13th century AH),
others from the Bronze Age (2nd millennium iH), a princely Getic helmet (4th century iH), including the famous Dacian gold bracelets (1st century iH).
Then we move on to Greek goldsmiths, Roman ornaments and all the way to modern times.
Wow Wow Wow!

8. The hoard of Svestari. From the gold of the Southern Thracian Thracians.

In the hall at the entrance to the Historical Hoard, but also in the Great Hall of the Historical Hoard is this temporary exhibition, which presents valuable finds related to Thracian gold from south of the Danube. There is information about kosoni (coins) and the set of ornaments from the Sveștari chest containing a diadem, bracelets, a ring, pearls and more,