Photo credit: (c) Cristian NISTOR / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

The birth certificate of the museum is a first exhibition of archaeological finds from the Drobeta Roman camp located close to the ruins of the foot of the Bridge of Apollodorus (103-105), opened on May 12, 1912 in a wing of the Traian High School as a permanent exhibition. With the addition of more artefacts, some discovered at various archeological sites in Danube riparian areas and others acquired, the exhibition relocated to the I. C. Frimu Hall of the Teodor Costescu Culture Palace, where it remained until 1972, when it relocated for good to its today’s address.

Museum director Doina Chircu told AGERPRES that when it opened, the museum had four sections that today house more than 100,000 exhibits, half of them dating back to the Upper Paleolithic and the remaining covering the next eras to the 20th century.

‘The most sensational item in the museum’s collections is the skeleton of Europe’s oldest Homo Sapiens discovered at Schela Cladovei, Europe’s oldest human settlement, today part of a quarter of the city of Drobeta Turnu Severin, developed in 8,000-5,500 B.C,’ said Chircu.

She added that also at this unique archaeological site, vestiges that are of high importance to the history of human civilisation have been unearthed: the ruins of a workshop that manufactured malachite beads and part of the flint tools used for their manufacturing, a cult altar and more than 65 tombs dating from 7,300-6,300 BC.

After studying the relics, Professor Vasile Boroneant concluded in 1960 that some of these archaeological vestiges, part of which had been preserved at the Iron Gates Region Museum, are a real treasure in the historical heritage of Romania and the rest of the world. Carbon dating of the Schela Cladovei settlement confirms its age of nearly 8,750 years.

‘The artefacts found at Schela Cladovei and displayed at our museum have won world recognition, having been included in the world’s ancient history treatises and university classes. They confirm the fact that we possess clear evidence of a still unknown civilisation comparable to the ancient worlds of the Nile Valley, Tiger Valley and the Euphrates,’ said Chircu.

Photo credit: (c) Cristian NISTOR / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

That is not all that imparts uniqueness to the Iron Gates Region Museum. Displayed in Hall I, where an exhibition of Upper Paleolithic history was mounted (about 30,000 years BC), are flint tools collected from the Climente and Cuina Turcului caves, including antler hoes for agricultural purposes, arrows of animal bone and teeth, as well as unique vessels for religious services and food storage.

Especially attractive are also urns, statuettes and ornaments of the Garla Mare civilisation that carry spiral and incised motifs, with the pottery rivalling the one of the Cucuteni civilisation.

Also in Hall I is a copy of the grand treasury of Hinova (12th century BC), discovered by the museum’s former director Misu Davidescu, that weighs nearly 5 kg of gold 980? pureness (24 karats), made up of a diadem, looped rings for hair, necklaces with rhomboid and spheroid elements, bells, earrings, bracelets and a sleeve with buttons weighing 580 grams.

‘Hall II is devoted to the Iron Age. Visitors can see here Gaeto-Dacian pottery, iron farm implements and weapons, silver ornaments and two vessels of precious metal for religious services — a rhyton of Poroina Mare and a vessel of Portile de Fier [Iron Gates], both of which are replicas of the original artefacts in Bucharest and New York, respectively. Also on display are Roman thermal baths, the face of King Decebal and the Dacians’ battle flag,’ said Chircu.

She said Hall III continues the history of Dacians and Romans, with battle scenes from the Trajan Column in Rome, a map with the road carved in a rock by Romans at Clisura Dunarii, Tabula Trajana and the navigable canal through the rocks at Cazane that allowed passage of Roman ships with soldiers. Also exhibited here is the structure built at the Roman camp of Drobeta that would house 1,000 Roman soldiers, tasked exclusively with defending the bridge over the Danube that was rebuilt in miniature in 1906 after a mock-up by French engineer Edgar Duperrex.

‘Hall V is devoted to deities. Visitors find here stone, marble and bronze statuettes that cover the entire Roman pantheon that were manufactured at the local workshops of the province in northern Danube. Some of them were imported by colonists from the Eastern provinces of the Roman Empire, including Isis, Osiris, Seraph, Aphis and Mithras, as well as Cybele. A special place is reserved to the representations of the Danubian Knights also known as the Thracian Knights,’ said Chircu.

‘The artefacts in halls VI, VII, VIII and IX provide precious information about the ancient bastions of Drobeta and Dierna, the Knights of St. John, the mediaeval bastion of Severin, the Painted Chronicles of Vienna of November 9-12, 1330, the rulers of Wallachia, Vlaicu Voda, Mircea the Old, Michael the Brave, Iancu of Hunedoara and Tudor Vladimirescu. Generous spaces are set aside for the 19th and the 20th centuries, both of which are well supported by highly valuable items, allowing visitors to find out about the history of the realm,’ said museum director Doina Chircu.

That is why, the Mehedinti County Council, the administrator of the Iron Gates Region Museum, carried out, December 23, 2009 — December 23, 2014, a European project for rehabilitating the Iron Gates Region Museum and capitalising on it as a tourist product which aim is the restauration and sustainable capitalisation on the local cultural heritage as well as creating/upgrading related infrastructure. The project is worth 53,838,383.46 lei, 36,140,672.41 of which is the eligible non-returnable European funding, 5,527,396.96 lei the contribution of the Romanian Government and 850,368.76 lei the contribution of the Mehedinti County Council.

‘The project is designed to sustainably develop tourist infrastructure and to capitalise on it by restoring elements of Roman civilisation (the Roman camp of Drobeta — the first stone bastion in Roman Dacia), the Trajan Bridge, the Roman thermal baths with palestrae, as well as elements of medieaval civilisation (the mediaeval fortification in the south-western corner of the Roman camp and the ruins of a mediaeval church with buttresses),’ Chircu concluded.

Photo credit: (c) Viorel LAZARESCU / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

She also said that an aquarium as well as exhibits depicting the ethnography, flora and fauna of the Iron Gates region are equally visited by tourists and researchers who arrive in Drobeta Turnu Severin and want to get back in time to the worlds that went down in history. AGERPRES