The recognised emblem belonging to the land of Moldavia, and perpetuated over the centuries as the official sign of the country, is the ancient
aurochs's head with a star between its horns. The aurochs's head is flanked to the right by a sun (or rather a flower, the heraldic rose) and to the left by a waning crescent moon. When and under what circumstances this representation appeared as a symbol of the country is not known, but scholars consider that the emblem existed before the foundation of the independent Moldavian feudal state by
Bogdan I, in 1359. The oldest remaining representations of the coat of arms of Moldavia are the seals and coins dating from the reign of
Petru Mușat (1375 - 1391). Traian Bița however observes that the legend (the text running around the perimeter) on the coins suggests the aurochs's head was originally the arms of the ruling dynasty, becoming the state's arms only during the rule of
Stephen the Great. Consequently, the original state arms of Moldavia was a split shield, with a
barry of six or seven on
dexter and two to seven
fleur-de-lis on
sinister. Over the centuries, the image of the aurochs's head had undergone a constant evolution, being occasionally replaced by the
wisent's head, so that by the middle of the 19th century, the image of the wisent came to be used more often. The Moldavian state coat of arms (aurochs's head) differs from the Moldavian dynastic coat of arms (both with the initial elements and with its elements of various origins, some of them added over time to the shield). The state coat of arms was used on the great princely seal, coins, flags, some public buildings, and various other objects (princely sealing rings, battle or parade swords, etc.), while the dynastic coat of arms was also used on coins, but especially in circumstances related more to the particular life of the Moldavian voivodes (on church or monastery inscriptions, tombstones, bells, manuscripts, or personal belongings of the prince and members of his family). Traditionally, two insignia have persisted constantly on the Moldavian flags: the head of the aurochs, as the symbol of the Moldavian state, and
Saint George, as the ecclesiastical heraldic symbol of Moldavia. A princely
standard was first attested under the rule of Prince
Stephen the Great (late 15th century), displaying an enthroned Saint George set against a
cherry background. The depiction of the
Battle of Baia (1476) in
Johannes de Thurocz's
Chronicle shows Moldavian troops carrying a pennant with the aurochs's head on
pales of unspecified colour. According to a well-known historical source, the princely flag of Stephen the Great worn during a ceremony in 1485 was described as the "great flag of red silk, beautifully reproducing in gold the coat of arms of the Land of Moldavia" ("
Banderium quoque magnum sericeum coloris rubri, in quo arma Terrae Moldaviae pulchre auro depicta erant"). In 1574, Moldavian delegates to the coronation of
Henry III of Poland are attested to have carried a blue banner with the aurochs head. Moldavia's fall under
Ottoman Empire control, a process which was accelerated during the 16th century, saw a decline in flag usage; as princes became appointees of the
sultans, the usage of a
sandjak as a mark of authority became widespread. In the
coat of arms (either seal or
blazon), the aurochs was initially a
crest over a helmet and
party per pale escutcheon, charged with either
fleur-de-lis dexter and
bars sinister (interpreted as being alternating
vert and
or) or the
Patriarchal cross dexter (closely resembling the
Cross of Lorraine in usual renditions) and
fleur-de-lis sinister. In time reduced to the simple depiction of an aurochs's head on escutcheon, it was featured alongside the arms of Wallachia and
Transylvania on
Michael the Brave's seal, as well as only alongside Wallachia's on various symbols favored by rulers such as
Radu Mihnea and several
Phanariotes (in the latter case, it was more often than not accompanied by the
double-headed eagle of
Byzantine tradition). The prevalent
gules (or red) and
or (yellow) display was replaced, towards the beginning of the 19th century, by variations on a red-blue theme. As such, when the
Treaty of Adrianople allowed Wallachia and Moldavia a measure of
sovereignty, Sultan
Mahmud II awarded Moldavia a red over blue pennant to be used by its military, and Wallachia a yellow over blue one; Moldavia's pennant was similar to the version given recognition by
Austria-Hungary as the
Landesfarben of
Bukovina (the latter was blue over red). During the
Organic Statute rule of
Mihail Sturdza, the pennant was replaced by a
war flag/
naval ensign and a
civil ensign with a blue field and a red
canton standing for Ottoman
suzerainty.
Grigore Alexandru Ghica was to include the color yellow, already present in the pan-Romanian horizontal
tricolour favored by the
1848 revolutionaries, in the war flag's pattern. In 1858, the aurochs became the central theme of the most valuable stamp in
Romanian postal history, the
Cap de Bour. The aurochs head (dexter) and Wallachia's eagle (sinister) were included as
emblems on the tricolour adopted by
Alexandru Ioan Cuza after the union of the
Danubian Principalities in 1859; the arms of Moldavia are nowadays represented in the coat of arms of Romania, as well as in that of the short-lived
Moldavian Democratic Republic and present-day
Moldova (having previously featured in the coat of arms of
Bessarabia within the
Russian Empire). ==Gallery==