Mirror with Papyrus Handle Featuring Two Ibex Heads
Description
Object Label: The Egyptians associated mirrors with female sexuality and rebirth. Women needed mirrors to apply cosmetics and style their hair. Mirrors were thereby intimately connected with the eroticism that led to rebirth. Mirrors were also a symbol of cosmic creation. The disc of the mirror on a papyrus-plant handle symbolized the moment when the creator-god emerged from the primordial swamp in the form of the sun. Creation then subdued the chaos of the deserts, here represented by the two ibex heads. This symbolic depiction of the original creation served as an aid to the self’s re-creation in the tomb. Caption: Mirror with Papyrus Handle Featuring Two Ibex Heads, ca. 1539–1292 B.C.E.. Bronze, handle: 4 3/16 × 3 9/16 × 13/16 in. (10.7 × 9 × 2 cm) disk: 4 1/8 × 3 3/4 × 5/16 in. (10.5 × 9.5 × 0.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 75.168a-b. (Photo: Brooklyn Museum)
AI image analysis GPT-4o-2024-08-06
Machine-generated from the object's image on May 2026. Not curatorial; treat deities, names, and signs below as the model's best reading, not authority.
An ancient Egyptian hand mirror with a circular reflective surface and a handle adorned with decorative elements.
The artifact is a bronze hand mirror featuring a circular reflective surface, indicative of Egyptian metalwork craftsmanship. The handle is adorned with intricate patterns resembling intertwining lotus flowers, a common motif in Egyptian art symbolizing creation and rebirth. The design suggests a combination of functionality and aesthetic appeal, typical of personal grooming items from ancient Egypt.
Cross-references (2)
- BKM-Accession 75.168a-b tier-2
- BKM-Object 3848 tier-2
About this record's data
- From the source institution — accession, description, dimensions, and dating are as catalogued by Brooklyn Museum — Egyptian, Classical, Ancient Near Eastern Art.
- AI-inferred — the image-analysis panel (deities, names, signs) is machine-generated and may be wrong.
- Approximate location — most map points are plotted at the site centroid, not the exact findspot.
- Inferred links — cross-references marked with a match method other than explicit-source-field were matched by us, not stated by the source.