EXHIBITION
CYCLING IN VRŠAC

The Department of Ethnology of the Town Museum Vršac was founded in 1908. The collection was based on the old holdings, formed in the first decades of the 20th century and it has been increasing at the same time with the other Museum collections. Until the present-day 4,334 objects have been collected and classified into different collections.

The Department of Ethnology is made of objects collected in 73 settlements of the south-east Banat. This region is ethnically very diverse, thus, the collections have the multi-ethnical characteristic. The objects from this collection cover the time period from the 17th until the present-day and are classified according to their fields and functions.

Agriculture is one of the most important economic branches of this region, and because of that it is the richest in objects. The most numerous are the collections from the field of agriculture, cattle-breeding and viticulture. The exceptionally valuable collection from the field of agriculture is made of ploughs. The collection of gears and tools from the field of viticulture and enology is also very rich. It is made of tools for planting, hoeing, removing of roots, pruning and binding of vines, tools for the fight against Peronospora and other plant diseases, tools and gears for grape-gathering, for grape crushing, transport of marc, draining, dishes and devices for taking out, racking off, adding and filtering of wine, filling and closing of bottles, measures for pouring and means for processing of marc.

The collection of the Department of Ethnology from the field of crafts is also very significant. The following objects have been preserved: for the processing of clay (potter's trade), for the processing of textile (cloak tailor's and tailor's trade), for the dressing and processing of leather (furrier's, “opanak” maker's and bootmaker's trade), for the processing of wood (wheel-wright's, carpenter's, copper's, joiner's and turner's trade) and for the processing of metal (blacksmith's, farrier's, locksmith's, copper-smith's and brass-worker's trade).

The Department of Ethnology has a very rich collection of measures for length, weight, volume and liquid.

A great number of objects from the field of household furniture has been collected. The most significant are the collections of girl's chest boxes, objects for the lighting up of the rooms and kitchen utensils.

The collection of national costumes is of very different kinds and is made of the following collections: kerchiefs, embroidered bride's caps, blouses, shirts, wedding linen, coat tails, pants, women's sleeveless (embroidered) jackets, waistcoats, sheepskin coats, women's coats, men's coats, cloaks, trousers, embroidery, waistbands, belts (pouches) for money, skirts, aprons, slippers, strapped soft sole footwear, “opanak”, foot-rags, money-bags.

The collection of jewellery consists of decorative objects, which women wore, and objects which men used to decorate themselves. The most numerous is the collection of rings, but the collection of “puli” (decorative, ball-shaped, metal buttons) is also very rich. The collection of silver buttons from Banat is very interesting, too.

The collection of weapons out of Europe is very attractive, from the islands of west Indonesia and west Melanesia, which consists of 24 objects.