The Origins of Mirrors
and their use in the Ancient World
By Helen Costantino Fioratti
The Mycenaean and Minoan civilizations adopted the same round form very often with an ivory handle. Very few of these mirrors were on stands. Another type developed as a hinged box enclosing the mirror, similar to a woman’s powder compact today. These were all highly decorated, with either erotica or depictions of mythological scenes on the non-reflective side. At the end of the Mycenae era civilization, the mirror was a simple disk, many have been found in the Prosymna Necropolis of the Peloponnesus.
Mainland Greeks had three types of mirrors – the hand mirror, the mirror on stand, which appeared in the 5th century B.C., and the boxed mirror for toilette use – inspired probably by Egyptian examples.
During the 6th century B.C., mirrors formed part of the religious offerings of priestesses, whereas those of the fifth century had a less sacred function. These were often embellished with idealized heads and bodies, accompanied by rabbits, roosters, dogs or foxes running about the mirrors’ rim. Women living private lives seem to have owned these, as they were decorated with Aphrodite’s attributes.
Other mirrors with caryatid stands have also been excavated. These are large, were obviously costly, and evidence extremely fine workmanship. Some were convex on the front, and concave at the back, thereby functioning to enlarge, or to reduce the size of the reflection to show more of the body, albeit in smaller form. Some mirrors were very large; an example at the Nationalmuseet in Copenhagen measures 22 ˝ in. (47.75 cm.) high.
The famous tale of Narcissus, in which he is captivated by his own image, demonstrates how powerfully the ancients’ imagination was drawn to the concept of one’s own reflection. Inherent in the myth was belief in the existence of a double, or of a soul taking on substance. Some ancients even believed that looking at one’s reflection could invite death since the image was thought to capture the soul. Consequently, mirrors had to be veiled and water-filled vessels covered after a death. Mirrors were also for the ornamentation of the body, a constant with primitive cultures. In some ancient and Medieval languages, the word for mirror also meant “container of the shadow.”
Mirrors in ancient times could have had a magical or ritual origin due to their ability to connect with the sun’s rays, thereby causing fire. In this way, with the aid of a mirror, Archimedes was said to have set fire to the Roman fleet attacking Syracuse. In Greek mythology the invention of the mirror was attributed to Hephaestus, the god of fire and metal. Legend had Medusa see herself in the reflective surface of Perseus’ shield.
With the advent of Greece’s classical period however, the reflected image lost its magical powers.
Excavations attest that towards the 5th century B.C. many mirrors were used throughout Greece and Asia Minor. Some of these now had a ring on the handle with which to hang it on the wall.
Styles from greater Greece influenced Etruscan and pre-Roman mirrors through the 6th to the 2nd centuries B.C. Mirrors found in archaic tombs in Lazio were similar to the Etruscan, which were still decorated with mythological scenes.