Original scientific paper
A bronze mirror with an inscription in the hungarian language
Anita Rapan Papeša
; City Museum of Vinkovci, Vinkovci, Croatia
*
Hrvoje Vulić
; City Museum of Vinkovci, Vinkovci, Croatia
Edina Balić
; Conservation-Restoration Craft Business POD MIKROSKOPOM, Nova Bukovica, Croatia
Erzsébet Zelliger
; ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Hungarian Historical Linguistics, Sociolinguistics and Dialectology, Budapest, Hungary
Géza Szabó
; János Tornyai Museum, Hódmezővásárhely, Hungary
Gábor Hosszú
; Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Department of Electron Devices, Budapest, Hungary
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
This paper presents the results of the archaeological, palaeographic and linguistic investigations of a bronze mirror discovered near Ilok (Vukovar-Srijem County, Croatia). The object has been identified as a mirror cast using the lost-wax technique. Beyond its primary function, the object is particularly remarkable because its reverse bears an inscription consisting of 31 graph that encode a text in the Old Hungarian language. The depiction of a leopard on the back of the object closely resembles motifs known from finds dating to the period of the Hungarian Conquest (9th–10th centuries). The inscription running along the rim of the bronze mirror on its back side is written in Old Hungarian using the Carpathian Basin Rovash scripts. It is of exceptional importance because it was cast in metal, making it unique among the currently known inscriptions in the Rovash script of the Carpathian Basin. Moreover, it represents a new variant of this script, since it contains several previously unknown graphemes. Furthermore, certain graphemes display hitherto unattested variants, such as the graphemes <β>, and <χ>. The symbols in this inscription likewise corroborate previously published readings of other Rovash inscriptions. Both the mirror and its inscription can be interpreted on multiple levels of abstraction; this duality embodies the opposing concepts of good and evil, as well as the contrast between this world and the next.
Keywords
Bronze mirror; Carpathian Basin Rovash script; depiction of a leopard; inscription; lost-wax technique
Hrčak ID:
353291
URI
Publication date:
31.12.2025.
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