Birdlip Mirror: Difference between revisions

 

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| name = The Birdlip Mirror

| name = The Birdlip Mirror

| image = Birdlip Mirror 100 BC to 50 BC.png

| image = Birdlip Mirror 100 BC to 50 BC.png

| image_caption = Drawing of the mirror’s front, c. 1903

| image_caption = Drawing of the mirror’s , c. 1903

| image_size =

| image_size =

| material = [[bronze]], [[vitreous enamel]]<ref name=”s202″>Shirokova (2015), p. 202</ref>

| material = [[bronze]], [[vitreous enamel]]<ref name=”s202″>Shirokova (2015), p. 202</ref>

English historical artefact

The Birdlip Mirror is an intricately decorated ornamented bronze mirror from the late-Iron Age found in 1879 near Birdlip, Gloucestershire in England. It is dated to c. 100 BC – 50 BC^[2] and now in the Museum of Gloucester. It has a cast handle and circular mirror plate, which was highly polished on its front to achieve reflectivity, in an age before glass. The reverse contains intricate engraved and chased curvilinear patterns in the Insular La Tène style found in Britain and Ireland.

It was discovered alongside a silver gilt brooch, an amber necklace, and two bowls and bracelets made of bronze and silver, as well as the skeletons of a woman in her mid-30s—presumed to be its then and final owner—and two men. It is believed that the woman was buried c. 50 AD. The bodies and high-quality artefacts are collectively known as the “Birdlip Grave Group”.^[3]

The three skeletons were discovered by accident by two quarrymen digging for stone in 1879 at Barrow Wake, just outside the village of Birdlip. The bodies had been placed in a line, with the two males lying on either side of the female. The site was foud to be an Iron age graveyard, situated close to the road between Birdlip and Crickley, at the feet of the Cotswold Hills.^[4] The burial site contained several high quality grave goods, including a silver-gilt brooch, an amber necklace, two bowls and bracelets made of bronze and silver, indicating that the female was of high status.^[5]

The graves were enclosed in a cist (a small stone-built coffin-like box, chest or ossuary).^[6]

The woman is estimated to have been around 35 years old. She has not been identified, although several theories have been proposed by both archaeologists and local and popular historians. A reconstruction of the woman’s face was created by the Museum of Gloucester in the early 21st century.^[7]

The mirror is made from enamelled bronze^[1] and is formed from three pieces: the cast handle, the mirror plate and the tubular binding strip around the mirror’s edge. The mirror is decorated with some 77 individual engraved florid scroll patterns set on a dark background.^[1][8] The pattern’s outlines were engraved twice, initially with a fine round-nosed graver and before being reworked more deeply with a common graver.^[9]

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  Detail of a pattern on the mirror’s top right-hand side (from the c. 1903 drawing)

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  Detail of a pattern on the mirror’s lower left-hand side (from the c. 1903 drawing)

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  Pattern just above the mirror’s handle (from the c. 1903 drawing)

Because of the short time between its creation and burial, the mirror is in very good condition and has suffered little corrosion.^[1][9]