Mirror with engraving of Calchas

Photogallery

Mirror with engraving of Calchas
Mirror with engraving of Calchas
Room III. Bronzes

A particularly representative class of Etruscan craft is that formed by bronze mirrors, decorated with engravings or, more rarely, in relief on the surface opposite to the reflecting part. Chronologically they are distributed between the sixth and third century B.C., with a particular development in the 4th cent. BC.
This famous mirror shows an elderly haruspex intent on examining the liver of a sacrificed animal for drawing auspices from it. The Etruscan inscription describes him as Kalkhas, that is the mythical Greek soothsayer Calchas represented here in the Etruscan iconographic version with the attribute of wings, a clear characteristic that underlines his function of go-between between earthly and transcendent reality. The foot placed on a rock is to be noted. This is a fundamental action in the divining process by the haruspex who in doing this establishes contact with the earth as the site of the natural sphere and of the underworld.