Japanese Magic Mirrors -- Beginner's Guide. 80+ annotated photos, 31 pages. Feb. 2023. (2025)

Quest, nos. 202 and 203, 2020

An exploration of the magical use of mirrors.

The Mirror Age, 2024

This personal research paper discusses the materials, production and role of Iron Age mirrors. The views within the paper are not peered reviewed and do not represent the consensus of archaeological opionion.

The uploaded file contains the final MS draft of the published essay.

Journal of Asian Civilizations, 2022

The objective of this paper is to highlight four masterpieces of Harappan mirrors in the collection of the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi. The origin of those mirrors from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro and side by side an attempt is made to locate the present location of other mirrors elsewhere.

Journal of the History of Collections, 2017

34th International …, 2006

Información del artículo Analyzing a mirror from the mirror s hall at La Granja Royal Palace, Segovia, Spain. Some problems in composition, conservation and heritage management.

Source: Notes in the History of Art, 2011

The imaging of Japanese magic mirrors (Makyohs) is discussed by comparing the visual images of the backside relief pattern under different illumination conditions and the projected Makyoh image, rather than considering the back relief pattern as the input. It is also hypothesised that for a large number of magic mirrors, the Makyoh imaging is beyond the Laplacian regime under optimum viewing conditions, which accentuates the bright regions in the image; these correspond to reflecting highlights or step edges in the visual image. Published magic mirror images support this hypothesis. Simulations of the visual and Makyoh images are also presented.

Given the huge linguistic, cultural, historical and social differences between the East and the West, what constitutes the ground for comparison poses a serious challenge to any comparative work. For Chinese-Western comparative studies, it is very important not just to make theoretical claims, but to establish the validity of comparison through a display of concrete examples as textual evidence to reveal the comparability of different literary traditions. Without textual evidence, comparisons may sound empty and unconvincing, and jumping from abstract concepts to jargon-laden obscurantism only reduce the value of comparative literature and damage its respectability. Through discussion of the comparability of a concrete image-that of the mirror-this essay will show the importance of textual evidence as methodologically meaningful for East-West comparative studies.

The article presents two special finds uncovered at the site of Sanjar-Shah during the 2016 archeological season—a bronze pin with a unique finial of two Janus-like faces, and a fragment of a Chinese mirror. The bronze pin has no parallels among Sogdian objects but is strikingly similar to a group of so-called "mace-heads" that originate in Sasanian Iran.We suggest that the design of the Sanjar-Shah pin is inspired by these objects, all of them being modelled on real maces attested in Sogdian paintings. The surviving fragment of the mirror allows us to establish that it belongs to a well-known type of mirror from the Tang period, the Zhenzifeishuang mirror. This is the first time that a mirror of this type has been found outside of China.

Shipwrecked: Tang Treasures and Monsoon Winds, 2010

Antike Kunst, 2018

Heritage Science

This article presents a generic, objective and evidence based forensic study of 4 very different Chinese bronze mirrors. The work was done within the Architectural Conservation Laboratory (ACLab), the Department of Physics, the Faculty of Medicine and also the Planetary Spectroscopy and Mineralogy Laboratory (PSML) allat the University of Hong Kong. The mirrors nominally cover the period of the Warring States (475–221 BC), Han (206 BC to 220 AD) and later Song (960–1279AD) dynasties. Comprehensive, mostly non-invasive, analytical methods and techniques were used. These included surface microscopy of tool marks, patina, corrosion and any residual archaeological evidence. Ultraviolet radiation examination, chemical spot testing and polarised light microscopy of ground-up patina samples was also done. More sophisticated “pXRF” X-ray fluorescence, “MARS” tomographic X-ray scanning and infrared spectroscopic analysis of the bronze alloys, corrosions and any earthen encrustations were al...

The essays in this book are gathered together from the realms of art, literature, history, archaeology, philosophy and science. Together they weave a picture that gives us new insights into the mirror as a material object and as an image in art and texts. This interdisciplinary and innovative book raises important issues about the material life of an object and its intimate interrelations with socio-cultural imagery. Perceptions of the workings of our cognitive processes and of our subjectivity are shown to be dynamically interwoven with the technological and socio-cultural matrices of particular periods, whilst longer term continuities in the understanding and employment of the mirror reflect underlying continuities in the capacities and constraints of mirrors and of human subjects. This book demonstrates the active role imagery and technologies have always played in our thoughts, lives and worlds.

Proceedings: Aesthetics Bridging Cultures > Session Aesthetics Beauty/New Old

Mirrors are legendary and are known for bringing trouble upon those who approach them. Seven years of bad luck to those who break them, annihilation to those who gaze at them. But they are tools that permit us to contrast our exterior and interior images allowing us to construct an accurate appearance. In a society where attractive people are widely favored, mirrors, while having the capacity to project on their surface what stands in front of them, are also gadgets without instruction manuals. “Mirror, mirror on the wall. Who is the fairest of them all?”

Presented in Islamic Art Course

Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2019