- Richard Daniel De Puma –
mirror inside is circular. There is, indeed, a large corpus of well-preserved round box
mirrors dating from the Late Classical and Hellenistic periods. These are usually made of
bronze (although a few silver examples are known^22 ) and their hinged covers are decorated
with fi gural scenes in high relief. These sculpted reliefs were made from moulds and,
therefore, there are numerous duplicates of individual types.^23 Simple round discs can also
be turned into hand mirrors, even if they don’t have tangs, by the addition of separately-
cast bronze handles attached with solder or, less commonly, with small rivets (Fig. 58.5,
2 [a–c] and 3 [a–d]). There are numerous examples of this type but they have attracted
relatively little scholarly attention because the discs are usually undecorated.^24
Sometime in the later^ fourth century bc the Etruscans began to produce mirrors with
discs and handles formed in one piece (Fig. 58.6). Exactly how these mirrors were made is
the subject of considerable debate. For many years scholars assumed that the mirrors were
cast in moulds and then polished. Many mirrors published in the CSE are said to have
a “handle cast in one piece with the disc” but a close examination of the metallurgical
features of several mirrors convinced four British researchers (Judith Swaddling, Paul
Craddock, Susan La Niece and Marilyn Hockey) that this was not correct.^25 Instead, they
proposed: “Etruscan metalworkers both made and decorated the mirrors by cold working”
(p. 117). The authors examined mirrors carefully and noted various metallurgical clues
that demonstrate the validity of many of their arguments. However, is it not possible that
the Etruscans employed a combination of direct casting and cold working? Essentially,
this was the hypothesis put forth in the 1950s by C. Panseri and M. Leoni.^26 In favor of this
suggestion is the similarity of so many complicated handles, as well as the same or similar
dimensions for disc diameters. The “mass production” of late Etruscan mirrors, especially
during the late fourth and third centuries bc, would seem to require direct casting rather
Figure 58.6 Typical handle mirrors: Etruscan (left) and Praenestine (right). Drawings by the author.