Avram Iancu Memorial House

The Avram Iancu Memorial House stands in the village of Incești, in Avram Iancu commune (formerly Vidra de Sus), in the Arieșul Mic valley, in the Land of the Moți. The nearest town is Câmpeni. The house, built around 1800, was Avram Iancu's family home; his parents were Alisandru (Alexandru) and Maria Iancu. Avram Iancu was born in this commune in 1824, studied at Zlatna and Cluj and led the Moți during the 1848 to 1849 Revolution in Transylvania. The annexes were built in 1924 by the ASTRA Association of Sibiu and served as classrooms for the Incești primary school until 1972. In 1972, on the centenary of Iancu's death, the museum was reorganised, with history and ethnography displays in the annex. The house is a typical Moți home with a tall, steep roof ending in four semicircular arches. The museum displays photographs, family papers, personal belongings, Iancu's cannon, swords and shepherd's flute, weapons, flags, his school certificates from the Zlatna gymnasium, his will and documents on the 1848 to 1849 Revolution. The ethnographic display shows Moți costume, pottery and the tools used to make tubs, alphorns (tulnice) and carts. The village lies on county road DJ 762, which climbs the Arieșul Mic valley. The "Avram Iancu House" ensemble is a listed historic monument (LMI code AB-II-a-A-00238). Did you know that the coat of arms of Avram Iancu commune shows a flintlock rifle and a shepherd's flute crossed above Iancu's bust? Iancu's flute is kept in the museum at his birthplace, and according to his biographers, in the last years of his life he often played laments on it.