Category talk:Etruscan folding mirrors

Repetitive use of figurative design types

Bibi Saint-Pol pointed it out in the image descriptions of two mirrors in Paris already: The producers of these folding mirrors applied a relatively limited number of figural design types to the lid reliefs. After consolidating the folding mirror images in the present, dedicated category, the images by Sailko make this even more evident:

Eros – drunken Dionysos with thyrsos – Muse(?) with kithara

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  Villa Giulia
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  Tarquinia
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  Florence, fragment

Hermes – baby-Dionysos – Nymph

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  Geneva
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  Villa Giulia
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  Florence
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  Florence

What might get boring for museum visitors is interesting for archaeologists. For the type with the drunken Dionysos (Fufluns), Dietrich Willers compiled a list comprising 30 known items (as of 1986):

Dietrich Willers: Vom Etruskischen zum Römischen. Noch einmal zu einem Spiegelrelief in Malibu, in: The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal, vol. 14, 1986, pp. 21-36 (online PDF).

(... and research will have gone on since then ...)

They are not identical replicas, though. – Further aspects to be researched include possible production centres, distribution, chronology, correlation with Roman mirrors (continuous production from Etruscan through Roman times, maybe?), and such.

So, any writer of an article on folding mirrors will be glad to have these photos. Thanks a lot to the photographers! -- Martinus KE (talk) 11:59, 18 March 2022 (UTC)