"One-of-a-kind medallions" special online sales event

Atelierul de istorie has started a new series of online sales events hosted by Facebook. The first focuses on unique handmade medallions inspired by the civilizations of antiquity - mainly Dacian and Roman. The Facebook event is entitled "Wearing Antiquity" [Romanian: Antichitatea la purtator].

For two weeks shoppers will have the opportunity to acquire one-of-a-kind jewelry items, made of natural materials available during the ancient period - leather, metal, glass, and burnt clay. Though the small company specializes in handmade objects inspired by the civilizations of Classical Antiquity and its website presents a wide variety of such items, the medallions available during this special, limited-time event are single items that cannot be purchased normally online.

Join the event [June 9th-23rd 2017], see the products and drop us a line if anything is unclear or you wish to communicate in English - we do ship abroad as well :) And remember - this works on a first come first served basis.

Join the Facebook sales event by Atelierul de istorie!

Plants known and unknown during Antiquity

Part of the research and activities planned for the Labyrinth through time cultural project implemented by my NGO Virtus Antiqua I have recently taken an interest in the issue of what plants did the Romans know and use. The first step was to compile a Pinterest album on the topic, reuniting ancient depictions of plants (mostly used as cooking ingredients or spices), actual remains (mostly from Pompeii), but also reconstructions of gardens or cooking tables. See it HERE.

"Roman plants" Pinterest album

 Then, I devised several activities for our meetings with reenactors and volunteers. The first is a test for the senses, asking participants to guess certain plants according to their shape and smell, thus discussing their possible origin and uses in the Roman world.

Smelling and guessing Roman plants

Vanilla bean - unknown during Antiquity in the Mediterranean

Sample box

The second activity focuses on plants unknown in Europe during the Classical Period. Several plants introduced from the new continents - tobacco, tomatoes, potatoes etc. - are shown to the participants who guess them according to ancient prints and then try to discover when they were introduced and from where.

Plants introduced to Europe after the great geographic discoveries of the Early Modern Period

Read more about the project and its activities HERE

Pineapple leather earrings

The most recent addition to my Etsy shop the Transylvanian Trove is a new model of handmade leather earrings. These original pineapple-shaped earrings are entirely made by hand out of genuine, 100% natural leather. These are great fashion accessories for both everyday use and special occasions. The transparency effect is obtained through the overlapping of two pieces of leather, the upper one perforated to suggest the fruit's texture. Several color combinations are possible. The earrings are fitted with common metal hangers and loops.

The art earrings in question are created in Transylvania, but of tropical inspiration. Due to their length - 5 cm (1.9 inches) - these earrings shall not pass unnoticed! Be disco and have them assorted to various types of casual or festive outfits.

See more unique earrings at special prices from the Transylvanian Trove HERE.
Read also an earlier blog post about my leather earrings created for Atelierul de istorie HERE.

Pineapple earrings, handmade out of natural leather, original jewelry, fruit earrings, perfect gift for her, disco from Transylvania

Pineapple leather earrings

wearing my own creation - pineapple-shaped art leather earrings

fruit accessories handmade

anatomy of a pair of handmade leather earrings

Labyrinth through time - reenactment channel on YouTube

This year I am much involved in a cultural project entitled Labyrinth through time, partially funded by the National Cultural Fund Administration of Romania. Through this project my reenactment NGO from Cluj, Virtus Antiqua, plans to organize up to 15 meetings of experimental archaeology and living history this summer with families of volunteers and a final event in the autumn, reconstructing a true labyrinth "inhabited" by antique reenactors. Camp Virtus is our historical entertainment park near Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

The first meetings have been documented already on YouTube, through the project's specific channel:

Roman banquet and dessert, a game of archaeology, bow and arrow target practice and a display of gladiators:

The reconstruction of an ancient Roman bread oven:

  The second meeting - a game for the senses, an ancient Roman recipe, and the reconstruction of the oven:  
The first meeting, recruitment, and an ancient Roman snack:
 
Read more about the project (in Romanian) HERE. 
Join the project as volunteer together with members of your family - read the conditions (in Romanian) HERE. 
For updates follow our Facebook Page Camp Virtus.

New pastel flowers by Marin Gruia

Summer has set in yet again as Marin Gruia's favorite source of inspiration, so his latest creations depicting season flowers in stylized vases. The two brand new works reproduced here are pastel on paper (his favorite and first mastered technique), size 29 x 29 cm. The format is also among those that the artist from Cluj-Napoca, Romania, feels most at ease with.

For more of his creations feel free to check his art page on Facebook Marin Gruia Art

There is also his recent profile on Artbrl

And his website (in Romanian) HERE .

"Flowers", pastel on paper, c Marin Gruia

"Flowers", pastel on paper, c Marin Gruia

Books' Room at the History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj

This room, initially another storage space and then the laboratory of the modern pharmacy, is now used for the display of part of the books and documents collection, but also of some of the highly popular exhibits  of the History of Pharmacy Collection in Cluj-Napoca.

Books' Room in the History of Pharmacy Collection, Cluj-Napoca

The central case contains two 18th-century manuscripts by Tobias Maucksch, the privileged pharmacist who initiated the decoration and the first marketing strategies in the old pharmacy. He noted offering doctors in town New Year’s presents so that they referred patients with prescriptions to his shop. Such presents consisted of white sugar, coffee or six lemons, as these were novel and fashionable goods during that period. The case also contains several printed works employed by pharmacists, from ancient writings and collections of aphorisms, to specialize books such as pharmacopoeias, encyclopedias of knowledge, and dispensatories, collections of recipes for the preparation of drugs.

The museum's collection of specialized written sources is in fact much larger, including as early as 16th-century pharmaceutical works printed in Venice, manuscript inventories of pharmacies from Transylvania, diplomas and numerous later, printed books.

Apothecary old books

Apothecary and medical old books

Among the famous exhibits, in this room you can discover the bottles in which the Elixir of Love was once sold and the recipe for this aphrodisiac drink, and a precious apothecary chest, a kind of first aid kit that noblemen took with them in their numerous travels through Transylvania and abroad.

Listen to the presentation on izi.Travel HERE.

Leather earrings collection

Art leather earrings by #Atelieruldeistorie

Atelierul de istorie has created so far around 20 original earring models, entirely handmade out of genuine leather. Most of them are inspired by the civilizations of antiquity, mostly that of the ancient Dacians, but there are also Baroque shapes, contemporary models with 3D effects, types inspired by folk art and many more. Some are also available on one of my Etsy shops, the Transylvanian Trove. See the latter selection HERE, though it also includes vintage items made out of feathers, metal, ceramics, and polymer clay, all original handmade creations from Transylvania.

See also a previous entry on the advantage of leather as a creation medium for jewelry, especially earrings, HERE.

 

Baroque volutes leather earrings

Atelierul de istorie presents the latest addition to its online shop, a pair of handmade leather earrings inspired by the decorative shapes typical to the Baroque period. These large earrings suggest the volutes that artists and decorators from this period so often employed in their works. In size (6.5 cm in lengh, i.e. 2.5 inches) these accessories are also Baroque, aka impressive, decorative, and easily noticeable.

The hangers are made of common metal alloy.

More color variants shall be available soon.

See other Baroque-like products by Atelierul de istorie HERE. 

See more of my art leather earrings on Pinterest HERE.

Baroque leather earrings

Volutes handmade leather earrings

Large leather earrings

An ancient Roman dessert remake

The latest gastronomic experiment at Camp Virtus, part of the cultural project "Labyrinth through time", envisaged the recreation of a Roman dessert, adapting an ancient recipe. The "cake" consisted of a solid layer of fresh season fruits (among those available during Roman times, naturally, such as grapes, plums, and pears), covered by a layer of fresh ricotta cheese mixed with honey, all topped with resins (other variants indicate walnut seeds or pine seeds). Fresh and easy to make, the result was served today during the remake of a Roman banquet with five-year-old kids dressed in tunics and togas :)

See an introduction to Roman deserts (in French) HERE. 

A useful introduction to Cooking Apicius HERE.

First layer of the Roman dessert

Fruits added

Fruits, cheese with honey, and resins

The Roman banquet for children

Camera materialium pharmaceuticorum

The Materials’ Room (Camera materialium pharmaceuticorum in its proper Latin form) was the main storage area of the old apothecary shops. No decoration was needed, as only the pharmacist and his assistant(s) had access here. In this rooms part of the old apothecary shop in Cluj-Napoca, the large three-wall closet is preserved from the Hintz pharmacy and it contains the wooden apothecary jars – most of them used for the storage of vegetal powders, as their signatures start with PULV, Lat. pulveris, i.e. powder. In the center of the room one can see the collection of hand scales, used by pharmacists to weigh the ingredients, and both younger and older visitors can have a go at the interactive corner, smelling and guessing a number of spices initially used as medicine.

Camera materialium inside the old apothecary shop in Cluj

 

Apothecary closet from the old Hintz pharmacy

This room also displays two Baroque apothecary closets, one with simple, vegetal decoration and the other with an illustration of the stages of life, from childhood, youth, maturity, until the inevitable end, in form of a skeleton with a scythe – that could be postponed by buying drugs from the pharmacy! The decoration, though slightly macabre, of the Memento mori type, was in fact yet another kind of commercial, a manner in which the pharmacists of old attempted to increase their sales. This piece of furniture was probably used initially in some Officina (apothecary shop room), as it is too decorated for a simple storage room.

See, read and listen to more on the old pharmacy in Cluj on the museum's multimedia free-access profile on izi.Travel.

Read more about the apothecary furniture collection hosted by the museum in Cluj-Napoca HERE. 

Wooden apothecary jars for Aloe vera preserved in the Materials' Room

 

Gladiatorial news from Virtus Antiqua

In its first show this year, during the Free Dacians' Festival in Baia Mare, Romania, held between May 19th and 21st, our reenactment association Virtus Antiqua has presented some of its novelties. These new elements have been included in the traditional show - a day in Ludus Memnii, the gladiatorial school of Gaius Memnius Primus. This year we present not only fights between recruits and gladiators, but also between gladiatrices, though a rarer sight in ancient Rome, makes for a more tasty depiction of such shows and events. Another addition is the inclusion of auxiliary soldiers in the show, part of the story of conflicts and rebellions inside the gladiatorial training school. The third novelty consists of the dance of the priestesses, not only that of the dancers embodying the ancient furies.

See more photos from the show in Baia Mare HERE.

 

Virtus Antiqua arms presentation stand at Festivalul Dacii Liberi

Gladiatrices from Virtus Antiqua

Auxiliary Roman soldiers chastising rebelling gladiators

Dance of the Batavian priestesses