An emblematic and indispensable tool in the practice of traditional agriculture, the plough appears in the Mediterranean world, dating back from the Roman ploughing and later spreading to the rest of Europe. In the Romanian countries, it began to be used in the first centuries of early feudalism (10th - 11th centuries).
Given the importance of agriculture in most Transylvanian rural areas and the crucial role of ploughing in obtaining rich crops, the beginning of the agricultural year, which is marked by taking the plough out of the household, was accompanied by a series of magical practices meant to bring fertility and protect the crops from evils.
The traditional plough used for ploughing was moved by draft animals, especially oxen and horses, and it was manually operated by the farmer-ploughman. The elements composing it are a horizontal plough beam, foot, horns, stilt, digger plough, as well as the two pieces of iron, ploughshare and long iron. The two iron components are meant to cut the earth, the digger plough overturning the sliced furrows.
The plough we present, with inventory no. 978, was purchased in 1923 by Romulus Vuia from Cornereva, Caraș Severin county and it is used for ploughing in flat areas, with a fixed digger plough and an asymmetrical ploughshare. Two rare elements can be noticed in the structure of this piece: the stilt and the foot form a common body, being made from the same piece of bifurcated wood, and the ploughshare is connected to the plough beam by a metal rod with thread and a bolt nut in the upper part.
Text: Cristian Micu – MET department head
Photo: George Ciupag – photo-video museographer, MET digital image processing