Archaeology Magazine - September 1949 - 5

Autumniq4Q
Lastly, the concept of Time was conveyed by
using the twelve symbols of the Far Eastern
Zodiac, either twelve animals, or twelve Chinese
characters substituting for them, or both. For, in
addition to representing twelve constellations and
the associated regions of the sky, each of these
individually represented a two-hour period of time
in the course of a day, a month of a year, or - in
combination with each of the Five Elements in
succession - a year in the sixty-year cycle.
THESE POINTS IN MIND, we Can gO on
WITH to consider the individual mirrors in the
exhibition.
The first (Figure
1) dates from the Han
Dynasty, specifically from the beginning of the
Christian era. It was found in West China, by a
friend of the writer, in a Han tomb, together
with coins and other objects of first-centuy date.
The inscription in the inner ring says that it was
made in the Imperial Factory
( Shang Fang),
and its superior workmanship, visible through the
corrosion of nineteen centuries, shows that it probably was.
This example illustrates
quite well the conmirrors with a soft
of
casting
technique
temporary
The small, pointed bosses,
stone master-mould.
and probably the large central boss as well, were
apparently drilled into the flat stone, while the
main straight lines were gouged out in shallow
grooves; then the characters and intricate figures
of the background must have been engraved with
a sharp tool. The shape of the characters, in particular, unquestionably indicates cutting in stone.
Probably the stone carving then served as a
for a wax model from which anmaster-mould
other mould was made by the lost-wax ( cire in the
perdue) process, for certain irregularities
inner surface of this mirror, and others of the
same time, suggest a wax rather than a stone contact in the direct mould. After removal from the
mould, the central boss, grooves, and rims were
regularly burnished; on this particular example,
the salient features of the patterns have been
silvered, or else specially treated to preserve the
original silvery finish of the white bronze, or
speculum, from which the mirror was made.
For a long time Western sinologists and collectors have called mirrors of this type UTLV
mirrors" because of the resemblance of some of
the grooves to those Roman letters. Actually, as

117
we have recently attempted to demonstrate in another article,1 these marks apparently
serve to
make of the inner pattern an ancient plan of the
Earth, the Earth being conceived as a large rectangle, with the center set off in a smaller square,
and right angles (here represented by the V's)
cutting off the corners to leave four rectangular
fields extending out in the four directions. - The
latter are here labeled by the four creatures,

Reuben Goldberg photo
Fig. 4. Sung "Four Spirits" mirror, tenth or
eleventh century A.D. The traditional animals
of the Four Directions, symbolizing the Universe in miniature. Diameter, 3 inches.
which have been silvered to make them stand out
The corners of the big recmore prominently.
as extending out under
be
considered
must
tangle
the heavy outer ring, which with its cloud pattern
represents the enclosing rim of the
apparently
dome of the sky (thought to fall within the bounds
The central pattern of
of the square of Earth).
the inner square in the center of the cross was
China surto represent
intended
apparently
rounded by the uFour Seas," a figurative exprestion referring to the lands of the barbarians beyond the gates of the civilized "Middle Kingdom."
gates, as
(The T's here are conventionalized
1 "The 'TLV Pattern on Cosmic Mirrors of the Han
Dynasty," Journal of the American Oriental Society 68
(1948) 159-167.

Archaeology Magazine - September 1949

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - September 1949