The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of December 19, 2025

Circular, slate mirror back with remnants of orange and yellow pigment carved with a central goddess created with geometric shapes with a square head and two flanking circular ear ornaments on each side of her head. Her headdress extends across the upper half of the circle with flowers, a central swirl, and radiating lines. Below her, two flanking figures face her, bending at the waist with hands outstretched. Bands with a star then swirl pattern circle the scene.

Mirror Back with Great Goddess

400–550 CE

Guatemala, Escuintla, Teotihuacán style, Classic Period

(?)
slate, pigment; other side originally inlaid with polished pyrite mirror
Overall: 20.1 x 0.2 cm (7 15/16 x 1/16 in.)
James Albert and Mary Gardiner Ford Memorial Fund 1989.65
Location: 233 Mesoamerican and Intermediate Region

Did You Know?

This ancient Teotihuacan mirror may have been used in divination rituals.

Description

An important female deity commands the watery scene on the back of this mirror. The face, bordered by ear ornaments and partially hidden by a nose ornament, appears beneath a huge headdress with the fringed eyes and curled proboscis of an abstract butterfly. The deity rests on a shell-studded water band and two adoring humans offer flowers or incense in a bag. Mirrors served as costume ornaments and perhaps were used in rituals to divine the unknown.
  • 1989-
    The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
  • Kidder, Alfred Vincent, Jesse D. Jennings, Edwin M. Shook, and Anna O. Shepard. Excavations at Kaminaljuyu, Guatemala. 1946.
    Young-Sánchez, Margaret. "Veneration of the Dead: Religious Ritual on a Pre-Columbian Mirror-Back." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 77, no. 9 (1990): 326-51. Reproduced: cover, p. 326-27; Mentioned: p. 326-51 www.jstor.org
    Berlo, Janet Catherine. Art, Ideology, and the City of Teotihuacan: A Symposium at Dumbarton Oaks, 8th and 9th October 1988. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992.
    Berrin, Kathleen, and Esther Pasztory. Teotihuacan: Art from the City of the Gods. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1993. p. 274
    Benson, Elizabeth P. Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Estaticas. (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, 2006.)
    Robb, Matthew H., et al. Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire. 2017. cat. no. 180, illus, p. 126
  • Teotihuacán: City of Water, City of Fire. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA (September 30, 2017-February 11, 2018); Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (March 25-September 3, 2018).
    The Year in Review for 1989. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 6-April 15, 1990).
  • {{cite web|title=Mirror Back with Great Goddess|url=false|author=|year=400–550 CE|access-date=19 December 2025|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1989.65