File:Medieval mirror (closed and open views) (FindID 131122).jpg

English: A damaged and incomplete cast copper-alloy medieval mirror case. It consists of of two joined slightly convex discs, held together by a rivet in a hinge. One disc has survived complete, but bent; only around half survives of the other. Each disc would have had a single lug on one side and a pair on the opposite side. No glass remains on the recessed inside surfaces of the discs, although the internal residual traces could be of calcium carbonate, a cement used to hold the glass in place. External decoration consists of the outline of a crude, rounded, open cross, in double lines of opposed triangles. A double line of opposed triangles runs diametrically between the lugs from side to side on each disc: such decoration was probably made using a roulette (Geake 2001, 72). An example of a mirror case decorated in such a way can be found illustrated in Egan and Pritchard (1991, 361-362; ref. 1715). This, and similar, date from the period c. 1270 - c. 1350; other publications (e.g. Mills 1999, 103) give a 14th-century date for mirror cases decorated in this way. That this was a standard method of decoration for contemporary mirror cases is noted in the literature and is also evidenced by parallels which can be found on the Portable Antiquities Scheme database.