A bronze mirror with Aphrodite and Eros from Nicomedia in Bithynia (northwestern Turkey)

Abstract

The Archeological and Ethnographical Museum of Kocaeli has in its collection a small, disc–shaped bronze mirror decorated with a relief scene, whose protagonist is the goddess Aphrodite. The scene shows Aphrodite seated left of centre on a rock. She is accompanied by two figures, a female who stands on a pedestal in front of her and her young son, Eros, who is behind her. This formerly unpublished object was found in Nicomedia in Bithynia, and has been dated to the fourth century BC. This paper will give a detailed presentation of the mirror relief scene, focus on its art–historical contextualisation and argue a first century BC. date for this object.