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Mirror
Mirror
Photo by Peter Paul Geoffrion

Mirror

Culture Group
Datec. 250–1500 CE
MediumObsidian
Dimensions5/8 x 7 3/4 x 7 3/4 inches (1.6 x 19.7 x 19.7 cm)
Classifications(not assigned)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number2000.6.1
Collections
  • ART OF THE AMERICAS
Label TextTeotihuacan was the largest city in the Americas in the first millennium, housing over 100,000 people from all over Mexico, mostly living in apartment compounds by family or ethnic group. The leaders of the city practiced a tightly organized religion focused on a female water spirit, now called The Great Goddess, and her assistants, Rain God Shaman-Priests and Coyote, Eagle, and Jaguar Warriors. Grand ceremonies were held along the city's main thoroughfare and culminated at the Pyramid of the Moon in rites requesting water from the Great Goddess. This avenue was lined with temple-shrines and elite palace compounds.

This obsidian mirror is the type worn by Teotihuacan shamans in the temple-shrines to help them enter a trance state in order to petition spirits such as the Great Goddess. To ancient Mesoamericans, the reflection of one's face in the highly polished mirror surface suggested a portal to the spirit realm.
ProvenanceDiego Veintimilla, Paris, France (In the collection of his family for 18 years); Sold to the (Throckmorton Fine Art Gallery).