Whoa.. I see a new Hollyweird movie coming out about this!

~NightSky

Nobles of the powerful Mesoamerican civilization conjured gods and ancestors in rituals centered around the objects.
by James L. Fitzsimmons May 20, 2024

Some people fear that breaking a mirror can lead to seven years of misfortune. The history of this superstition may go back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who ascribed mysterious powers to reflected images.

As a scholar of the Indigenous religions of the Americas, I know that the ancient Maya had a different take on cracked mirrors. During the first millennium, the Maya used such mirrors—in cities from southern Mexico to western Honduras—as channels for supernatural communication rather than as cosmetic accessories.

Rather than being made of glass, most ancient Maya mirrors were dark pieces of polished iron ore, glued together as mosaics on a piece of slate or wood. Maya nobles wore mirrors on their backs, displayed them on thrones, and set them inside tombs.

Using hallucinogens, these nobles stared at their reflections, seeking mystical experiences. The cracks between the pieces resulted in fractured, distorted reflections, through which it was believed that people could talk to divine beings. The nobles hoped to find wisdom in the lands beyond mirrors, which they associated with gods, ancestors, and other spirits.

Artists often portrayed these spirits as fantastic beasts and chimeras in paintings and sculptures. Sometimes, they portrayed nobles talking to the chimeras; at other times, they represented these beings as brokers for conversations with ancestors and gods. These conversations took place in dreams, trances, and hallucinations, often between two beings using mirrors. Maya artists represented these conversations as wondrous and terrifying—or even whimsical.

The most detailed interactions between gods and mortals are portrayed in sculpture at Yaxchilan, in the Mexican state of Chiapas. Inscriptions show that in the eighth century, its ruler dedicated a building with three front doors. In place of the wooden beams–lintels–fitted across the top of each door, there were ones made of stone. These lintels formed a triptych describing various events in the life of the king and his wife, including an audience with their patron god.

This building in Mexico, now known as Structure 23, has unfortunately been stripped of its original sculptures. The first two–Lintels 24 and 25–are on display at the British Museum; the third–Lintel 26–is in the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City. In both these museums, the lintels hang on the wall. In the Classic period, however, they would have been seen from below.

Words and images on Lintels 24 and 26 describe what was believed to have happened before and after an audience with a god. The images on Lintel 24 show the ruler holding a flaming torch while his wife engages in a painful rite: She pulls a thin, obsidian-studded rope through her tongue. These fragments of cooled lava, believed to be spiritually charged in the religions of ancient Mexico, would have resulted in the loss of vast amounts of blood–shown on Lintel 24 in the form of droplets around her face.

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