Weiner Mihályné szerk.: Az Iparművészeti Múzeum Évkönyvei 9. (Budapest, 1966)

HOPP FERENC MÚZEUM — MUSÉE FERENC HOPP - Ferenczy, László: Chinese Bronze Mirrors from the Han Period

might and power, the canopies and parasols were decorated in different ways according to the nature of the ceremony, but also according to the various clans. In tombs, the mirror often replaced the canopy or the parasol. This accounts for the fact that it is often found suspended on the ceiling of the tomb.

4 Bulling's book analyzing the mirror decoration of the Han period is of great importance.

5 So far the mirrors were usually dated in a summary way from the epoch of a dynasty, or from its early or late period. Relying upon dated mirrors and on mirror finds coming from authentic and readily datable tombs, Bulling was able to reconstruct the development of the main mirror types and worked out a useful chronology. Chinese excavations of recent years have unearthed very many mirrors, most of which were found at major constructions and are, in many cases, sporadic finds. Despite the large number of researches there are still some questions on Chinese mirrors that have remained unexplained, such as the problem of the initial forms of bronze mirrors, or the spreading and the changed role of Chinese mirrors among neighbouring nomadic tribes. In this respect, the study of Stratanovich should be mentioned.

6 He starts from the fact that there were three different kinds of mirrors used in olden China : the shafted mirror used by women, which was very rare before the T'ang period, the slightly convex and universally known mirrors used by men and finally, the flat and slightly concave ignition mirrors. Literature deals all but exclusively with the second type only, and even this is based mainly on decoration. The use of mirrors is also a question that is still inadequately elaborated. Availing himself of Chinese sources, Stratanovich has drawn the conclusion that, from the very beginning, there were two different types of mirrors used in China: the reflecting cup (chien) and the flat, concave or convex-concave ignition mirror. At the turn of the 2nd and 3rd centuries B.C. the latter has lost its function as an ignition device and, supplanting the reflecting cup, has become a fancy article.

7 The argumentation of Stratanovich is remarkable. However, the fact that concave ignition mirrors are hardly known would be difficult to be explained with nothing else than the insufficient attention of research workers. Interesting questions are also raised by Chinese mirrors found among neighbouring foreign peoples. In some respects, the importance of mirrors among nomadic tribes was presumably of a different kind, and so were the creeds attached to them. Trom this point of view it is interesting to note the TLV mirror fragment found in a Hunnish grave near Naimaa-Tolgoi in Central Mongolia by a joint Hungarian-Mongolian archeological expedition in 1963.

8 It was in a box made of birch rind, with rests of a comb above it. 4 Bulling, A. : The decoration of some mirrors of the Chou and Han periods. Artibus Asiae. Vol. XVIII. 1955. pp. 20-45. 5 Bulling, A. : The decoration of mirrors of the Han period. Ascona, 1960. (Further on: The decoration.) 8 Stratanovich, G. G. : Kitayskie bronzovye zerkala: ih tipy, ornamentaciya i ispolzovanye. Vostochnoaziatski etnograficheski sbornik. II. Moscow, 1961, pp. 47 — 78. 7 ibid. p. 78. 8 Ferenczy. L. : The fragment of a Chinese TLV mirror from Naimaa-Tolgoi and the Chinese mirror finds in Hunnish graves in Mongolia. Acta Archaeologica. Budapest, 1967.