Small Circular Mirror with Loop Handle and Geometric Decor in Relief

This small circular bronze mirror is slightly irregular in shape and decorated very simply, with radiating lines raised in relief around the central loop handle. Although now covered with patina, the flat, smooth side of the object seems to have originally been polished. A very early mirror, this is an important and most interesting object, particularly since its country of origin cannot yet be determined. If Chinese, it must date to the Shang dynasty; if Japanese, it must date to the Kofun period. The earliest Japanese mirrors imitate Chinese mirrors, sometimes virtually line for line, so it sometimes is difficult to distinguish early Japanese mirrors from their Chinese sources of inspiration. A related Chinese mirror—excavated from Tomb M1 at Zhaojiazhuangcun, Chunhua county, Shaanxi province—has been dated to the Shang dynasty. See Yao, Shengmin (Chunhua County Culture Center), “A Shang or Zhou Bronze Mirror Unearthed in Chunhua County, Shaanxi province,” Kaogu yu wenwu (1986), vol. 5, pl. 15. Note: The mirror measures 5.5 cm in diameter (comparable in size to the Harvard / Lin-Bequest mirror). Higuchi, Takayasu, “Bronze Mirrors of first appearing Stage,” Bulletin of Sen-Oku Hakuko Kan: Sumitomo Collection (2011), vol. 27, pp. 27-40, see esp. pp. 31, 33 (figs. 15, 17). At the same time, the Harvard mirror bears some similarity to mirror fragments excavated from the Otani Kofun tomb in Wakayama prefecture. (I can’t seem to find the bibliographic citation in my notes; however, I remember the book in which I found the related example, so I can find the book again to get the reference.) Unfortunately, we have no record of where Edmund C.C. Lin purchased this mirror. If he purchased it in China or Hong Kong, it is likely that the mirror is Chinese and dates to the Shang (or possibly Western Zhou) period. So far as we can ascertain, Edmund Lin believed this mirror to date to the Shang dynasty. The dealer from whom he purchased the mirror likely passed that information along. Some scholars—though not specialists in the field of Chinese or Japanese mirrors—has asked if this piece might be an Ordos bronze, perhaps a cover or a harness or bridle ornament or fitting.