THE REVERSE DECORATED MIRROR IN THE “MARIA AND DR. GEORGE SEVEREANU” COLLECTION
THE REVERSE DECORATED MIRROR IN THE “MARIA AND DR. GEORGE SEVEREANU” COLLECTION

Summary/Abstract: We discuss herein the mirror with reverse decoration in the “Maria and dr. George Severeanu” Collection, donated, together with the entire collection, to the Bucharest Municipality Museum in 1939. The artefact belongs to the type of disc mirrors with rectangular side handle decoration on the back side, specific mainly to the Sarmatian world, yet also found in the milieu of other cultural identities. Though emerging in the 1st century AD, these mirrors were used on a large scale in the 2nd century – first half of the 3rd century AD, being rarely found during the second half of the 3rd century AD, the few specimens from the early period of the Great Migrations being relics. The author notes that the tamga on the mirror’s back side is complex, having no identical or similar parallels, concluding there are complex tamgas whose components only are similar or close to this discussed here. The appearance and features of the tamga evidences resembles complex tamgas or tamga compositions on mirrors from Ciscaucasia, the Kuban region, the Lower Don area and the Crimean territory. Last but not least, the author infers that the mirror in the “Maria and dr. George Severeanu” Collection belongs to the mirror type broadly used in the area between the Volga and the Lower Danube in the 2nd century – first half of the 3rd century AD, and that it very likely originates from Crimea, however other variants are possible as well.

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