Bronze mirror

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Musée du Louvre
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Bronze mirrors preceded the glass mirrors of today. This type of mirror, sometimes termed a copper mirror, has been found by archaeologists among elite assemblages from various cultures, from Etruscan Italy to Japan. Typically they are round and rather small, in the West with a handle, in East Asia with a knob to hold at the back, often with a loop for a cord, or silk tassel.[1] Some were fitted with small stands, and others had a hinged protective cover.[2] In surviving ancient examples the surface is too corroded to be reflective, but some bronze mirrors are still made.

Newly-made Aranmula Kannadi, Kerala, India

They are first-surface mirrors, where the immediate bronze surface is flat, plain and highly polished to be reflective, rather than second-surface mirrors, like modern glass mirrors, where the reflection comes from a backing applied to the glass.

Maid holding folding mirror for her mistress, Greece, c. 100 BCE

They are significantly inferior to modern mirrors in terms of the quality of the reflection, but in older societies were sufficiently impressive to have religious significance in some societies. Examples include the

grave-goods.[4]

The back is often highly decorated in various techniques and styles, and may be significant for

Most ancient images show them being used by women, and figurative imagery on the back, as in Roman mirrors, often reflects female interests.

History

Bronze mirrors were themselves preceded by mirrors made of

Iron pyrites was also used.[6] Glass mirrors with superior reflectivity began to be made in the Roman Empire in the 1st century CE, but remained very expensive for a long time, as well as easy to break, and initially hardly any more reflective,[7]
so that bronze mirrors remained common in many parts of the world until the 19th century.

18th Dynasty, 1540–1296 BC
Right: seated woman holding a mirror; Ancient Greek Attic red-figure lekythos
, c. 470–460 BC

Early Modern telescopes and other uses. Its use in mirrors may date back more than 2000 years in China[8] although it could also be an invention of western civilizations.[9] There seem to be references to it by Pliny the Elder.[10] It was certainly in use by the European Middle Ages, giving better reflectivity than the usual bronze, and tarnishing more slowly. However, tin was expensive, and the composition of the alloy had to be controlled precisely. Confusingly, mirrors made of speculum metal were known at the time, and often later, as "steel mirrors", although they had no steel in them.[11]

Egypt and Near East

Polished bronze mirrors were made by the Egyptians from 2900 BCE onwards.[12] These Egyptian mirrors are spoken of in biblical Book of Exodus (1500 BCE), and used by Moses in the construction of the Tabernacle.

China

Eastern Han-period TLV mirror
, 25–220 CE

Bronze mirrors were produced in China from Neolithic times until Western glass mirrors were brought to China. Bronze mirrors were usually circular, with one side polished bright, to give a reflection, and the reverse side normally decorated in cast relief in early examples, later on sometimes inlaid in precious metal. They generally had a knob or loop in the center of the back so that they could be easily held in the hand, and sometimes attached to clothing. In the Tang and Song dynasties some examples were larger and more variable in shape. Other examples are so small, about 5 cm across, that they may have been mainly intended for ritual use, as "charms to ward off evil spirits".[13]

Some of the earliest examples of Chinese bronze mirrors belonged to the late Neolithic

Qing dynasties.[16]

Specific types include the

Large Flower Mirror
.

Europe

An Iron Age bronze mirror with Celtic decoration from 120 to 80 BCE found in St Keverne, England

The

putti. These are called "caryatid
mirrors".

Folding mirrors, also called "box mirrors", from about 400 BCE, typically had relief designs on the outside of the lid, and engraved decoration on the inside. Most were still round, and lacked handles, presumably as they were meant to be held by a maid. Eros/Cupid is often shown holding up a mirror for Aphrodite/Venus.

In the early periods, designs were typically engraved on the back, but luxury Greco-Roman mirrors often had figurative designs in relief.

Mirrors from the Iron Age have been discovered across most of Europe, generally as grave-goods. The Greeks were the earliest makers; the Etruscans imported Greek mirrors, and then began making their own, passing the practice on to their Roman conquerors.[17]

In the 1st century CE Seneca mentioned large wall mirrors; it may have been in front of one of these that Demosthenes used to practise his speeches in the 4th century BCE. The rich had silver or silver-plated mirrors.[18]

Celtic mirrors in Britain were produced up until the Roman conquest.[19] Two notable examples include the Birdlip and Langton Herring mirrors.[20]

  • Greek caryatid mirror, mid 5th century BCE
    Greek caryatid mirror, mid 5th century BCE
  • Greek folding mirror (found in Italy), 3rd century BCE, with Eros playing for Aphrodite
    Greek folding mirror (found in Italy), 3rd century BCE, with Eros playing for Aphrodite
  • Front of silver Roman mirror from Pompeii
    Front of silver Roman mirror from Pompeii
  • Silver, Roman, 150-200 CE, with unusually high relief
    Silver, Roman, 150-200 CE, with unusually high relief
  • Cupid with mirror on a mirror-back, Spain
    Cupid with mirror on a mirror-back, Spain
  • Fresco from Pompeii
    Fresco from Pompeii
  • Cupid holding up a rectangular mirror, Villa of the Mysteries
    Cupid holding up a rectangular mirror, Villa of the Mysteries

India

Aranmula kannadi
for sale

In the

Indus valley civilization, manufacture of bronze mirrors goes back to the time between 2800 and 2500 BCE.[21]
Bronze mirrors are usually circular.

With excavations in

Vaigai river valley in the Bronze Age. The excavations done in Adichanallur in 1899 by Alexander Rea, the then Superintendent of the Archeological Survey of India, Southern circle brought out two bronze circular items.[22] They are bronze mirrors similar to ones found in other civilisations. Carbon dating of samples tested resulted in the age of such items to be before 1500 BC.[23]

Aranmula kannadi are still made on a small scale in Kerala, South India, using a type of speculum metal, an extra reflective alloy
of copper and tin.

Japan

Kamakura Period, with chrysanthemum
relief and silk tassel

Japanese bronze mirrors were adopted from China, and are similar in form and, initially, style. Many had red silk tassels through the knob on the back.

National Treasure of Japan, largely for the linguistic importance of its cast characters. According to its relief inscription it was made for a prince. Yata no Kagami (八咫鏡) is a sacred mirror that is part of the Imperial Regalia of Japan.[24]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Osborne, 174; Dillon, 32
  2. ^ Osborne, 570
  3. ^ Osborne, 569–570
  4. ^ Osborne, 174
  5. ^ Osborne, 174–176
  6. ^ Osborne, 570
  7. ^ Osborne, 570
  8. .
  9. ^ The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. 64. Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. 1934. p. 71.
  10. ^ Meeks, 63–64
  11. ^ Osborne, 570; Meeks, 65
  12. ^ Z. Y. Saad: The Excavations at Helwan. Art and Civilization in the First and Second Egyptian Dynasties, University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma 1969, p.54
  13. ^ Dillon, 32; Osborne, 175–176, 176 quoted
  14. ^ Dillon, 32
  15. ^ Osborne, 176
  16. ^ Dillon, 32
  17. ^ Osborne, 570
  18. ^ Osborne, 570
  19. ^ Lloyd-Morgan, Glenys (1977). 'Mirrors in Roman Britain', in J. Munby and M. Henig (eds), Roman Life and Art in Britain. BAR. pp. 231–52.
  20. .
  21. , p.32
  22. ^ Alexander Rea: Catalogue of the Prehistoric Antiquities,1915, Item 15,23, Plate II
  23. ^ B SASISEKARAN et al: ADICHANALLUR: A PREHISTORIC MINING SITE, Indian Journal of History of Science, 45.3 (2010) 369–394
  24. .

References

Further reading

  • B. Schweig: “Mirrors”, Antiquity, Vol. 15 (1941), pp. 257–268
  • Glenys Lloyd-Morgan 'Mirrors in Roman Britain', in J. Munby and M. Henig (eds), Roman Life and Art in Britain, BAR Brit Ser 41 (1977), 231–52
  • Glenys Lloyd-Morgan 'The antecedents and development of the Roman hand mirror', in H. M. Blake, T. W. Potter and D. B. Whitehouse (eds), Papers in Italian Archaeology I: the Lancaster Seminar. Recent Research in Prehistoric, Classical and Medieval Archaeology, BAR Supplementary Series 41 (Oxford; 1978), 227–35.
  • Glenys Lloyd-Morgan 'The Roman mirror and its origins', in N. T. de Grummond (ed.), A Guide to Etruscan Mirrors (Tallahassee, Florida; 1982), 39–48.

External links