The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 29, 2024

Mirror Back with Great Goddess

Mirror Back with Great Goddess

400–550 CE

Did You Know?

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

Description

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.
  • 1989-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Kidder, Alfred Vincent, Jesse D. Jennings, Edwin M. Shook, and Anna O. Shepard. Excavations at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala. 1946.
    Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "Veneration of the Dead: Religious Ritual on a Pre-Columbian Mirror-Back." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 9 (1990): 326-51. Reproduced: cover, p. 326-27; Mentioned: p. 326-51 www.jstor.org
    Berlo, Janet Catherine. Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 8th and 9th October 1988. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992.
    Berrin, Kathleen, and Esther Pasztory. Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993. p. 274
    Benson, Elizabeth P. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estaticas. (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2006.)
    Robb, Matthew H., et al. Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire. 2017. cat. no. 180, illus, p. 126
  • Teotihuacán: City of Water, City of Fire. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA (September 30, 2017-February 11, 2018); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (March 25-September 3, 2018).
    The Year in Review for 1989. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 6-April 15, 1990).
  • {{cite web|title=Mirror Back with Great Goddess|url=false|author=|year=400–550 CE|access-date=29 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1989.65