Cultural Manifestations Organised by the Astra Museum For the Campaign "Europe, a Unique Patrimony"


The Folk Technological Monuments Preserved In The Open Air Museum In Dumbrava Sibiului (Pre-Industrial Civilisation)


The "ASTRA" Museum stands out by its specific thematic character: illustration of the Romanian folk civilisation, laying stress on technical pre-industrial creation. The tool system of a rich typological variety actually covers the whole section of the traditional trades demonstrating a high level of specialisation in handicrafts of the Romanian village.


Complex of folk industries,
Rucar, Arges County
Windmill with sails,
Curcani, Constanta County

Watermill with six
horizontal wheels,
Galesoaia, Gorj County

The folk technological monuments' category impresses by the great thematic variety of the folk industry installations and by a complete typology, hard to be found in any other museum of the world. There are exhibited 88 monuments of folk industry including: 26 presses, 22 grinding installations presenting all the energy types known in Euro-Asia (excepting tide mills), 9 felting mills, 10 whirlpools, 5 saw-mills, 4 fueling-mills, 8 oil-presses, 2 plum-brandy distilleries, 1 water-driven forge, 1 stamp-mill for gold ore, completed by 3 big complexes of folk industry.

The museum is interested in a co-operation with specialists from the whole world, from diverse domains (ethnography, history, sociology, anthropology etc) and proposes a compared research program in the field of the technical pre-industrial creation, program who proposes besides the study of the patrimony who already exists in varied museums' collections, the discovery and saving (in site or by transfer in museums) of different unknown folk technical monuments that still exists.

Custodian: Remus Iancu
E-mail: astra@sbx.logicnet.ro
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