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

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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