The Museum of Viticulture and Pomology Golești joins the Giurgiu County Museum “Teohari Antonescu” and the Câmpulung Municipal Museum are presenting a remarkable exhibition, opened as part of the “Giurgiu Museum Days 2025.” The exhibition “The Soul of Wood” highlights the essential place this living resource has always held in the traditional Romanian universe.
The objects on display – distaffs with diverse forms and decorations – invite us into a world where practical tools became true works of art. Carved, pierced, or simple, they tell stories of love and betrothal, of destiny and ancient beliefs, of winter gatherings where work, song, and play intertwined in a communal ritual.
The distaff was never just a tool: it was a precious gift from a young man to his beloved, a symbol of femininity and of life’s stages, but also an object invested with magical powers, tied to the fertility of the land and the destiny of each person. Its shapes and decorations preserve ancestral symbols – solar rosettes, the tree of life, vegetal and cosmic motifs – that have endured for centuries.
Through the collaboration of the three museums, visitors are invited to discover how a simple wooden object can reflect the richness of an entire world, long gone yet still alive in cultural memory.
“The Soul of Wood” is a journey into the heart of Romanian traditions, where craftsmanship and folk art intertwine with myths and stories of old.
