Orheiull Vechi

The paper discusses the rock-cut architecture phenomenon from the
Republic of Moldova based on the case study of OrheiulVechi (Old Orhei).
The landscape played the most important role in developing hermitages
and monastic communities, their infrastructures, religious, social and
economic activities. Another important aspect is the chronology, which is
a debated question because written sources mention such sites very late
and some scholars have been trying to link this phenomenon with early
monasticism. The building time of these complexes is not clearly
established, but their existence can certainly be framed with the medieval
state of Moldova. In this context, it is particularly important to place the
rock-cut sites from Moldova in their broader geographical context, which
would mean an examination and presentation of the elements of such
architecture from South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. The paper describes
one of the most important hermitages from the Republic of Moldova,
which is placed in the rock blanks of the Răut river. During Medieval time,
the town of OrheiulVechi was an important administrative center and,
probably in this context, a huge hermitage network was developed there,
concentrated in six areas of the Răut river valley. Two of them are known
as monasteries – Peștere and Bosie and the other ones as monks’
hermitages. During the last two decades, we have registered over 150 rockcut cells. So, based on written and archaeological sources, the paper
discusses the history of OrheiulVechi rock-cut hermitages, the role of the
natural environment in their development and place in the context of an
ecclesiastic system of Medieval Moldova.

Orheiul Vechi is one of the most attractive cultural sites in the Republic of Moldova and one of the most frequently discussed. The density of sites and the continuity of living in this space has made Orheiul Vechi attractive for the multidisciplinary research since 1946. In the context of preparing the dossier for the inscription of the historic-cultural and natural landscape reserve "Or-heiul Vechi" into the World Heritage List, a series of studies have been carried out in the last two decades. Some of these scientific approaches include non-in-vasive surveys in various areas of the reservation. Thus, in this article, all the results of magnetometric surveys carried out by a Moldovan-Romanian-Ger-man team in 2009-2014, have been presented for the first time. The surveys confirmed a number of archaeological situations already known and facilitated new discoveriesthat should be developed in the coming years.