Deep Reflection: An Archaeological Analysis of Mirrors in (2025)

Mirrors in the Ancient Near East.

Mirrors in the Burial Rites of Saryarka Population in the Golden Horde Period. Povolzhskaya Arkheologiya. №4 (22). 2017.

2017

The authors analyze the mirrors which were originally discovered in ancient Turkic burials, but became widely spread as late as in the Golden Horde period, which was largely accounted for by the intensification of contacts due to the establishment of the Mongol Empire. High-quality Chinese mirrors and their local imitations have been discovered across the entire vast territory in which the steppe peoples established new state formations. The authors support the opinion advanced by many researchers, according to which the mirrors represent ritual items. There is evidence of the fact that in the ancient Turkic period mirrors were characteristic of female burials. This information is partially confirmed for the developed medieval period as well, for paleoanthropological characteristics are not always available. The authors provide information on the conditions in which mirrors have been discovered in the burials of the historical period in question. The article features the first description of individual mirrors discovered in the burials of the steppe area of Kazakhstan. Of considerable interest is the discovery of one of the mirrors underneath a grave in a female burial conducted in accordance with the Muslim funerary rite. The authors attempt to identify the role of individual items in the burial rite of the medieval period, in this case mirrors, as a marker of gender identity.

Exploring Complexity in Bronze Age Exchange Networks by Revisiting the Bronze Mirrors of Central Asia and China

Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 2023

The ever-growing body of research on trans-Eurasian exchange during the third–first millennium BCE continues to improve understanding of mechanisms that facilitated the movement of objects, materials, ideas, and even people. However, whether bronze mirrors in Central Asia and China represent the exchange of technological knowledge or movement of the objects themselves remains unresolved, as researchers require extensive knowledge of huge quantities of data generated during the Soviet Central Asia campaigns of the mid twentieth century. The often confusing, impenetrable excavation reports, combined with required knowledge of Chinese, Russian and English, have caused much confusion about dates and contexts. This article presents and compares data published in Russian and Chinese reports. By clarifying the chronology for mirrors in Central Asia and China, we challenge simplistic theories of object diffusion and spread that persist in studies of trans-Eurasian exchange. We argue that the early second-millennium BCE appearance of mirrors in western and northwestern China resulted from different exchange mechanisms specific to each local socio-cultural context. This demonstrates not only the complexity of interactions at the group and individual levels, but also how these factors can be integrated with data-driven analyses to explore the role they played in large-scale Bronze Age exchange networks.

Art Style, Art & Culture International Magazine 7, 2021

With Eduard Gerhard's Etruskische Spiegel (1843-1897), bronze mirrors come to be among the earliest classes of objects to have been published in a systematic and extensively illustrated corpus within (classical) archaeology in the mid-nineteenth century. By making available archaeological material to scholars who had hitherto based their knowledge of ancient cultures mainly on written sources, such illustrated corpora constitute a kind of 'material turn' avant la lettre within classical scholarship. At the same time, however, these same corpora also initiated a process of de-materialisation of their objects: by substituting them for two-dimensional depictions, they often focused exclusively on areas with pictorial decoration, thereby turning functional material objects into sources for ancient art history. In a first part of this paper, I would like to follow these inherent dialectics in the publication of archaeological material by examining the example of bronze mirrors. In a second part, which is focused mainly on a mid-fifth century BC Greek caryatid mirror in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art 1972.118.78), I try to 'restore' to these Greek mirrors the material aspects that were neglected in past scholarship, using these sophisticated instruments of female cosmetics mainly as sources for the reconstruction of the history of Greek sculpture. Without forgetting the place of mirrors in Greek literature and philosophy, the discussion shall focus on the material affordances of mirrors, and above all their power of reflection and ability to produce an image. The (syn-) aesthetic experience of seeing oneself, put back on centre-stage, will thereby shed new light on those mostly erotic iconographies with which mirrors were adorned.

Mirrors in Koryo society: Their history, use and meanings

2005

The Koryoˇ dynasty (AD 918-1392) witnessed an unprecedented rise in the production of bronze mirrors that were cast in a large variety of shapes, sizes and motifs. This thesis explores the history, use and meanings of Koryoˇ mirrors and challenges preconceived interpretations viewing them as one-dimensional everyday objects whose mundane existence persisted irrespective of context. Through a detailed study of the surviving evidence, a complex picture emerges and mirrors are proven to be meaningful commodities that operate within unique social, political and religious settings. These conditions govern their production and consumption and determine their stylistic attributes and uses. The body of material examined consists of archaeologically recovered mirrors from tombs and pagodas and unprovenanced examples in museum collections. The former undergo a rigorous structuralist analysis within their known framework of use, whereas the latter expand and enrich the sample. Pre- Koryoˇ exam...

Sarmatian Mirrors and Han Ingots (100 bc - ad 100): How the Foreign became Local and Vice Versa. Cambridge Archaeological Journal

Concepts such as creolization and hybridity offer inclusive frameworks to study identity formation emanating from cross-cultural interaction. The borrowing of such concepts developed from recent history must contend with their relevance for the past as well as their applicability for understanding objects with mixed cultural features. This article reassesses the hybrid concept by contrasting a cognitive approach that identifies the figurative processes behind the local adaptation of foreign things. Looking at objects from Han China and the northern Black Sea, I examine how nomads and imperial agents conceptualized foreign objects through metonymic and metaphoric associations to influence understandings of self and group identity.

'Tales of a Twofold Reflection: Etruscan Mirrors and their Users’, Mediterranean Archaeology Australasian Research Community Meeting (MAARC), 31 gennaio 2022

2022

Time DAY 1 (Mon 31 Jan) STREAM 1 Museums and Mediterranean collections in Australasia STREAM 2 Disability in history and archaeology STREAM 3

Reflections from the Tomb: Mirrors as Grave Goods in Late Classical and Hellenistic Tarquinia

Etruscan Studies, 2008

’Two Mirrors for Medea. An Etruscan Mirror and a Renaissance Reflection’, The International Virtual Mirror Studies Conference. Mirrors: an Interdisciplinary Approach (IVMSC) - 31 agosto 2022

2022

As you can read, there are three types of events: scientific sessions, an art session (in the form of a roundtable and feel free to prepare questions for our distinguished speakers), and a coffee/tea lounge, a chat event between participants. The conference will be held through Zoom. In every session, two technical assistants will help with the online issues. Looking forward to seeing you this year and preparing your abstracts for IVMSC #4 2023 Planned schedule Beijing time August 29 August 30 August 31 17.00 Opening ceremony 17.00-18.30 Art session 17.00-17.30 Virtual coffee/tea lounge 17.30-19.30 Mirrors in Roman Empire 17.15-19.00 Mirrors: interdisciplinary perspectives 18.30-20.30 Mirrors in the Balkans, Central and Eastern Europe 19.30-21.

The Mirror Age: A Study of the Materials, Production and Symbolism of Iron Age Mirrors

The Mirror Age, 2024

This personal research paper discusses the materials, production and role of Iron Age mirrors. The views within the paper are not peered reviewed and do not represent the consensus of archaeological opionion.