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A Celtic Mirror from Great Chesterford

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Cyril Fox
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Extract

The mirror is likely to have come from a lady’s grave: no details of the find are available. There is in the parish a well-known cemetery dating from the beginning of the Early Iron Age.

The overall length of the mirror with its handle (PLATE XXVI) is 23·5 cm. (11·75 in.); the diameter of the plate is 16·3 cm. (8·15 in.). This has a delicate incised line round its circumference, close to the edge, back and front, as the photographs show.

The face of the mirror is smooth and glossy: the piece suffered some damage when disclosed—probably by a plough-share. It is thus slightly bent at the top (losing, here, its smooth reflecting surface), and the handle has been wrenched, causing a crack in the plate to the right and above it. It should be noted that there is no loss of detail of the pattern on the mirror-back resulting from this crack: the dark strip on the photograph (PLATE XXVII) is, in part, a shadow cast by lateral displacement.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 34 , Issue 135 , September 1960 , pp. 207 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1960

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References

1 Its passage under the handle on the left is certain; it is visible in the notch marked X.

2 Related patterns will be seen on PI. 56 of C. Fox, Pattern and Purpose: A. (Mayer), C. (Gibbs), P. (Col chester)—earlier; H. (Old Warden)—later.

3 Fox Pattern and Purpose, PI. 60, A. Here best seen at ‘4 o’clock’ on Plate xxvil, near the rim.

4 Pattern and Purpose, Fig. 51.

5 My paper on Celtic Mirror Handles in Britain, Archaeologia Cambrensis, 1948, gives the range of its type.

6 Pattern and Purpose, PI. 56.

7 Pattern and Purpose, PI. 56 H.

8 This breakdown of a formal tradition is carried even further by the Old Warden mirror, Pattern and Purpose, Pl. 60.