One of the most well-known objects on display in the British Museum’s Enlightenment Gallery is the obsidian mirror associated with John Dee, the Renaissance polymath, magus and confidant of Queen Elizabeth I. The mirror’s links to Dee’s occult practices have created a unique set of meanings around this object. Nevertheless, other aspects of the mirror also deserve attention. As a material, for example, obsidian is often regarded as special; though widely used in tool manufacture, its use to make mirrors has often added to its allure and symbolic nature. Obsidian mirrors were first made in the seventh millennium BC in the Near East, although mirrors such as the one associated with Dee are likely to have been of Aztec origin….
[T]he John Dee mirror is not only associated with the growing European engagement with the New World, but also came to symbolise the entangled relationship between science and magic in the late Renaissance….
John Dee lived from 1527 to 1608/1609. He was an archetypal Renaissance scholar, writing on diverse subjects including alchemy and astrology…. In 1558, he became scientific advisor and astrologer to Queen Elizabeth I. Between c. 1550 and 1570, he advised on English voyages of discovery to the New World and showed great interest in accounts of the initial Spanish encounters in the region. By the 1580s, he had become increasingly involved with the supernatural and took various scryers or mediums to communicate with spirits through the use of mirrors or crystals—most notably Edward Kelley—into his service as intermediaries between himself and the angels. It is for this period of his life that he is best known in the public imagination, and it was probably also the time that the obsidian mirror discussed here came to the fore….
To determine the exact source of obsidian, we analysed a series of geological samples from potential Mexican sources, selected from the collection of the University of Missouri after an initial review of the readings. They included obsidian from Otumba (three samples), Pachuca (four samples), Ucareo (two samples) and Zaragoza (four samples)—all originally collected during the fieldwork of Robert H. Cobean. Each source sample was analysed five times, with the mean of each sample subsequently used. A comparison of the readings from these sources was made with results obtained in Missouri using a Bruker III-V pXRF instrument….
Artefact 1 (the John Dee mirror) closely matches the geological obsidian from Pachuca, as does Artefact 3, the one most similar in shape to the John Dee mirror. Artefacts 2 and 19 belong in the second compositional group, closely matching the geological obsidian from Ucareo. That the mirrors are made of obsidian from different sources is not particularly surprising, as several sources of obsidian were exploited by the Aztecs. The Pachuca source was the most heavily exploited and was located within Aztec territory….
Obsidian was an important resource in the Aztec Empire and was used for military and domestic equipment, as well as in religious activities. During the final stage of the Aztec Empire, production of obsidian items was increasingly carried out by specialist craftsmen controlled by the elite. Mirrors, made of obsidian or pyrite, had complex symbolism and were time-consuming to manufacture. Much of the information about obsidian mirrors in the Aztec world comes from Fray Bernadino de Sahagún (c. 1499–1590), the Franciscan missionary and ethnographer who compiled the General history of the things of New Spain in the early colonial period.
Obtaining, working and using obsidian involved myth and ritual, while also having practical applications. Obsidian was used in many ways, including for medicinal and protective purposes; the reflective appearance acted as a shield against bad spirits, and captured the image and soul of a person….
When John Dee acquired his mirror, he obtained an unfamiliar and stimulating object, redolent of new and exotic knowledge, which would have been even more unique in an English than in a continental context. Given Dee’s interest in the New World, he may have been aware of the significance of obsidian, and the omniscience of Tezcatlipoca’s mirrors would have had an obvious attraction. Indeed, this may have been a primary reason for its acquisition. He also, however, lived in an era in which the use of mirrors for magical purposes in Europe—particularly black mirrors —meant that the context was receptive to the use of a mirror of exotic origin.
h/t Dr. G. Heath King
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