How many kinds of mirrors did the ancients use?

The early days of slavery in China were in the Bronze Age. In the long-term bronze smelting and casting practice, people realize the relationship between alloy composition, properties and uses, and can manually control the proportion of copper, tin and lead. The ancient book Kao Gong Ji records "gold"

"There are six kinds of homogeneity", that is, six kinds of alloys, of which the last one is together: "Gold and tin are half, which means they are the same." This is the proportion of making bronze mirrors. "Jian" is a kind of mirror with high tin content, because the surface of bronze mirror is bright and silvery white, and it also needs casting performance to ensure the fine pattern.

More than two thousand years ago, China people made a beautiful "transparent mirror", which can reflect the beautiful patterns behind the bronze mirror, thus attracting great interest in the world. In order to solve the mystery of "transparent mirror", scholars at home and abroad have spent hundreds of years researching and exploring it. It was not until modern times that it was discovered that the curvature of the mirror was slightly unequal relative to the back pattern after manufacturing and processing, and the back pattern was reflected by reflection. This fully shows China's superb mirror-making technology and profound understanding of light reflection characteristics in ancient times.

In the ancient Greek and Roman times in Europe; It also uses a slightly protruding polished metal disk as a mirror, and its non-reflective surface is engraved with patterns. The earliest mirror was a hand mirror with a handle. In the 1 century, a big mirror appeared. In the Middle Ages, hand mirrors were very popular in Europe, usually silver mirrors or polished bronze mirrors. In the Middle Ages, small mirrors in exquisite ivory boxes or precious metal boxes became followers of women.

Art mirror

Carry things with you.

As a fashionable product, metal-plated glass mirrors appeared at the turn of 12 to 13 century. By the Renaissance, Nuremberg and Venice had become famous mirror-making centers. /kloc-At the beginning of the 4th century, Venetians made mirrors on the back of glass with tin foil and mercury, which were very clear. /kloc-In the 5th century, Nuremberg made a convex lens. When making a glass ball, it was coated with a layer of tin amalgam.

Modern mirrors are made by the method invented by German chemist Libiger in 1835. Silver nitrate is mixed with reducing agent to precipitate silver and attach it to the glass. The commonly used reducing agent is sugar or potassium sodium tartrate tetrahydrate. 1929, the British Pilton brothers improved this method by continuous silver plating, copper plating, painting and drying.

With the development of technology, the cost of mirrors is reduced, and various curved mirrors appear, which makes the use of mirrors increasingly extensive, with more uses than reflective appearance. For example, spherical rear-view parabolic mirrors used in automobiles, parabolic mirrors used in telescopes to gather and reflect parallel light in searchlights, etc.

earliest

Gratable

The silver-plated glass mirrors that can be seen all over the world today originated in Germany nearly 200 years ago. In 1835, German chemist justus von Justus von Liebig invented a method of coating a thin layer of metallic silver on one side of transparent glass. This technology was quickly improved, which provided conditions for large-scale production of mirrors.

Modern mirrors may have originated in the19th century, but the origin of mirrors is actually longer. A review published by Dr Guy enoch, a visual scientist, in the journal optometry and vision in 2006 pointed out that about 8,000 years ago, people in Anatolia (now Turkey) made the world's earliest mirror from polished obsidian.

Between 4000 and 3000 BC, polished copper mirrors appeared in Mesopotamia (today's Iraq) and Egypt. About 1000 years later, people in Central America and South America began to make mirrors with polished stones. At the same time, China and Indians made mirrors out of bronze. In 1 century, the Roman writer Pliny the elder mentioned the earliest record of using glass mirrors in his encyclopedia Natural History, but these mirrors were obviously not widely used at that time.

Throughout history, all kinds of mirrors appeared in different civilizations at different times, but naturally they should be called the real inventors of mirrors. Enoch wrote: "A calm pool and a rock or clay container filled with water may be the earliest mirrors." Of course, these natural mirrors are far from today's handmade mirrors.

But not everyone in the world likes mirrors. In the 1970s, when an anthropologist brought this mirror to the isolated Biami tribe in Papua New Guinea, people here were filled with fear rather than fascination.

Historical connotation

Novel mirror

The ancient mirror means big basin and its name is prison. Shuowen said: "The prison can take water from the bright moon, because it can follow the line, so it is used as a mirror." At the beginning of the Three Dynasties, prisons were made of tiles, so there were no gold characters beside the ancient prison characters. In the early years of Shang Dynasty, bronze swords began to be cast, and later the characters of swords also had gold characters. In Shang and Zhou dynasties, although there were bronze mirrors, tile mirrors were still very popular. It was not until the Qin Dynasty that bronze mirrors were cast. Because mirrors were better than mirrors in many aspects, water was no longer used as mirrors after the Qin Dynasty. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, mirrors were used more widely and made better. Its materials include gold, silver, copper, iron and so on. , with copper as the most, gilded with gold and silver, with gold and silver on the back, or inlaid with gold and silver wires. Since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, various patterns with handles and squares have appeared. It was not until the late Ming Dynasty that glass was used as a mirror. After Qianlong in Qing Dynasty, glass became popular among the people. Until the early Republic of China, a few remote areas still used copper as a mirror.

Mo Mu, also known as ugly girl. Five thousand years ago, in order to prevent the tribal "wedding robbery" incident, the Yellow Emperor deliberately chose a virtuous, gentle and ugly ugly woman (named Mo Mu) as his fourth wife. The Yellow Emperor also said: "Those who value beauty over virtue are not true beauty, and those who value virtue over color are true sages." Five thousand years ago, the Yellow Emperor fought against Chiyou, surrendered to Shennong, quelled the war, unified the three tribes, ended the barbaric era, and mankind just began to enter a civilized society. Dressing, building a boat, building a car and dressing up have also become essential things in everyone's daily life. At that time; In order to tidy up their unkempt appearance, the ancestors often faced a basin of water or stood by the calm river and water to tidy up. Therefore, this kind of "looking in the mirror" recorded in ancient books is called "in view of water" So, what does this have to do with Mo Mu?

According to legend, the first mirror used by human beings was discovered and made by Mo Mu. At that time, people in the Yellow Emperor's palace often stood by the water to reflect their faces and dress up. Mo Mu thinks he is ugly, so he won't go to the water to dress himself up easily, and he won't show up casually during festivals. All I know is that I revolve around the Yellow Emperor all day. On one occasion, Tong Yu's family asked Mo Mu to go up the mountain with her to dig flagstones. Without further ado, Mo Mu,

Kitchen knife mirror

Mo Mu went up the mountain with Tongyu's name. Mo Mu has great strength, and she can dig the slate faster than other women. I dug more than 20 pieces in less than half a day. At this time, the sun is at noon, and the sun shines on the earth. Mo Mu suddenly found a shiny stone among the stones, and the sun was shining brightly.

Mo Mu bent down and gently dug it out of the ground. He was startled when he held it in his hand. What kind of monster is this? His ugly face is all over this stone. Even she feels strange! She quietly hid the stone in her body and went back to the palace of the Yellow Emperor without telling anyone. When no one was around, she took out the stone piece again and found that the plane of the stone piece was uneven. The face reflected on it is very strange. Mo Mu went to the factory producing stone knives and axes and found a millstone. He pressed the stone on it and rubbed it repeatedly. It didn't take long, and all the stone surfaces were smooth. She took a picture with it, which was much clearer than before. It's just that my face is still so ugly She grinded it for a while, picked it up and took another photo. She is still ugly. Mo Mu sighed and said, "It seems that ugly faces can't blame stone fragments (mirrors)."

From then on, Mo Mu never went to the river or the water to make up. Get up every morning, take care of yourself according to the stones, and then hide quietly after use. Over time, Mo Mu also careless. Once, Mo Mu helped Tong Yu cook the meat on the slate. Due to excessive firepower, the slate was blown up, and a piece of gravel flew up, breaking Mo Mu's face and bleeding profusely. Mo Mu hurried back, took out the stone tablet and put the medicine on his face. Who knows, the Yellow Emperor doesn't know when he will come back. Walking behind Mo Mu, he found Mo Mu rubbing something on himself with one hand and applying medicine on his face with the other. The Yellow Emperor walked behind Mo Mu and put his head close to Mo Mu's shoulder, ready to observe carefully. Unexpectedly, Mo Mu exclaimed! She found the face of the Yellow Emperor on that stone. I turned my head and saw that the Yellow Emperor was standing behind her. The Yellow Emperor asked Mo Mu, "What do you have in your hand?" Mo Mu, who is honest and upright, knew that he should not cheat the Yellow Emperor when he heard his questions. Poof, he knelt in front of the Yellow Emperor.

Mo Mu told the Yellow Emperor from beginning to end that he had found this luminous stone and asked the Yellow Emperor to forgive her. The Yellow Emperor smiled, held Mo Mu in his hand and said, "This is a great discovery for you. You are not only right, but also have made great contributions! " Hearing this, the Yellow Emperor immediately called Lei Zu, Lei Fang's family and Tong Yu's family to pick up the Mo Mu.

Reflection principle

Show the stone fragments that can see the face to her three wives. Lei Zu said with a smile, "Huangdi, no wonder I haven't seen Mo Mu dressed up in the water for a long time. It turns out that she has this beautiful treasure. " Tong Yu immediately said, "Huangdi, this discovery should be attributed to Mo Mu's sister!" The Yellow Emperor said excitedly, "Of course, you should remember a merit!"

The use of mirrors by human beings began in the history of the Chinese nation.

No wonder, there is an ancient book "Yuan" that says: "Xuanyuan is a mirror". The book "Biography of Xuanyuan" also said: "The emperor will be the queen mother, casting twelve mirrors, and use them if you want." Yi Shu also said in the book: "In Raozhou, it is said that Xuanyuan casts mirrors by the lake, but now there is Xuanyuan grinding mirror stone."

With the development of smelting technology, people invented iron mirrors and bronze mirrors. 4000 years ago, Egypt produced bronze mirrors. Later, bronze mirrors were unearthed in China. After Qin and Han Dynasties, the manufacturing level of bronze mirrors in China was well-known at home and abroad. Bronze mirror is not only an instrument for dressing and shaping, but also a beautifully shaped handicraft.