Piatra Neamţ (population: 105,000) is a city in Neamţ county, Moldova, Romania.

History

Piatra Neamţ lies in the Bistrita River Valley, surrounded by mountains, in an area of great natural beauty. The city's industries include a fertilizer plant, a pulp and paper mill, and several food-processing plants. Southeast of the city are large factories that produce synthetic fiber and nitrogen fertilizer. The city's attractions include an archaeological museum, which contains a famous collection of painted pottery from the Neolithic Period (about 8000-4000 BCE); a theater; a natural science museum; and the Church of Saint John (1497-1498). The Bistrita Monastery, founded in the early 15th century, is 8 km (5 mi) west of the city. Population (2004 estimate) 185,000.

Piatra Neamţ is one of the oldest settlements in Romania. The oldest traces of human civilisation in the present territory date back to the higher Paleolithic, about 100,000 years BCE. The Cucuteni culture, whose development lasted approximately one thousand years (ca. 3600-2600 BCE) was attested in the territory of Neamţ county by a remarkable number of settlements (approx. 150), archaeological diggins unearthing important museum collections of Aeneolitic vestiges. Archaeologists have also iscovered objects here dating back to the Neolithic Period and the Bronze Age (about 1900-1700 BCE).

Excavations just outside the city revealed the ruins of a large Dacian city, Petrodava, mentioned by Greek geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd century. The whole compound had its heyday between the first century BCE and the first century CE. Standing out is the citadel at Bitca Doamnei which contains shrines resembling those identified in the Orastiei Mountains. As far as the existence of a local leader is concerned, historians tend to suggest the identification of the Kingdom of Dicomes in the very political centre at Petrodava. The complex of strongholds without peer in Moldavia and Wallachia is evidence as to a powerful political and military centre both in Burebista’s time and in the period that preceded the reign of Decebalus. The settlement was documented in the 15th century as Piatra lui Craciun, or Camena, a market town.

The first urban settlements, which emerged under Petru I Musat (1375-1391), were Piatra lui Craciun, Roman and Neamţ. The Neamţ citadel, whose documentary attestation dates back to February 2, 1395, was also erected during the same consolidation period of the Romanian state east of the Carpathians. The Princely Court of Piatra Neamţ is mentioned for the first time in a document dated April 20, 1491; it was founded between 1468 and 1475, under Stephen the Great, the Princely Cathedral being built in 1497-1898 and the 20 m. tall Bell Tower in 1499.