🍀Saxons - The "Roman" Press with a Stone Table from Cristian, Sibiu County

     Coming from Cristian, an old Transylvanian village near Sibiu, the press with a central vertical screw illustrates an ancestral technology known since the Roman Empire. The press sits on a stone table, made from local rock, which acts as a counterforce. In contrast, the press broght from Vințu de Jos takes us back to medieval times. It has an excentric vertical screw and a counterweight, and it was operated manually by one or two people. 

     Being located near the area dedicated to wine-growing, not far from the Bălănești winery in Gorj county (where the traditional method of pressing the grapes by feet was practised before pressing them in a mechanical press), and the Corni - Huși winery in Vaslui county (where the grapes were crushed in a single-foot press), the presses from Cristian and Vințu de Jos complete the diversity of the pressing systems in the museum. 

     These artefacts illustrate the differences between the ancient indigenous tools, such as the press and the trough, and the two types of press imported and adopted by the Transylvanian Romanian communities.