Mirror Back with Great Goddess

Cleveland Museum of Art

Mirror Back with Great Goddess

Date
400–550 CE
Medium
slate, pigment; other side originally inlaid with polished pyrite mirror
Culture
Guatemala(?), Escuintla, Teotihuacán style, Classic Period
Department
Art of the Americas
Institution
Cleveland Museum of Art
Object ID
155049

From the Cleveland Museum of Art record

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. This ancient Teotihuacan mirror may have been used in divination rituals.

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Provenance & credit

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Credit line
James Albert and Mary Gardiner Ford Memorial Fund
Provenance
1989-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

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