Mirror Back with Great Goddess
Unknown Artist
An important female deity commands the watery scene on the back of this mirror. The face, bordered by ear ornaments and partially hidden by a nose ornament, appears beneath a huge headdress with the fringed eyes and curled proboscis of an abstract butterfly. The deity rests on a shell-studded water band and two adoring humans offer flowers or incense in a bag. Mirrors served as costume ornaments and perhaps were used in rituals to divine the unknown.
Credit: James Albert and Mary Gardiner Ford Memorial Fund
400-550 CE
Slate, pigment; other side originally inlaid with polished pyrite mirror
20.1 x 0.2cm
1989.65
Image and text: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 2024
Her finder du dette
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Permanent samling