Sfeșnicele mici de lemn cu un braț: practică culturală și recuperare muzeală
The small wooden candlesticks with one arm: a cultural practice and a museum recovery

Summary/Abstract: The paper discusses the problem of old items that once had had important ritual roles and afterwards remained in the passive domain of the heritage of the community. Using the example of small wooden candlesticks, found on the territory of the church from Mihălășeni, district of Ocnița, the author reconstructs their purposes in the cultural practice. Over 200 such items were found, being reminiscences of practices spread in the Middle Ages. Man used small wooden candlesticks preferentially in this village, but their usage in the rural area was much wider. Worked out of a perishable matter, they were not signalled out in our area as archaeological artefacts, like those made of ceramics, metal and glass. However, families having different economical possibilities used all of them with the same roles and significances, according to the local tradition, in different times. The inclusion of these heritage items in the museum exhibition, due to their age and functions, offers a wide range of possibilities. In the permanent exhibition “Nature. Man. Culture” of the National Museum of Ethnography and Natural History, a big number of small wooden candlesticks, together with other cult objects and those that reflect daily life, complete the founding discourse of identity and state in the Middle Ages.

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