“Reflections on Ancient Greek Mirrors” | Archaeological Institute of America Lecture with Mireille Lee

The Lamar Dodd School of Art welcomes the Archaeological Institute of America for the Barbara Tsakirgis Memorial Lecture with scholar Mireille Lee. Art History Associate Professor Mark Abbe invited Lee in partnership with the Athens chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America to deliver this special talk.

“Reflections on Ancient Greek Mirrors”

Mirrors are so ubiquitous in our own culture, we tend to take them for granted. But mirrors are highly significant in many cultures: as symbols of status, beauty, and vanity; as instruments of duplicity, prophesy, and magic; as windows into the soul. Although ancient Greek mirrors have attracted the attention of scholars and collectors for over a century, their significance in Greek society remain poorly understood.  This lecture explores ancient Greek mirrors from their earliest appearance in the seventh century BCE through the Hellenistic period.  I argue that mirrors were complex objects that were essential for the construction of feminine identity in ancient Greece.

Speaker Bio

Mireille M. Lee, PhD is the Founder and Executive Director of the Foundation for Ethical Stewardship of Cultural Heritage, a US-based nonprofit dedicated to the legal and ethical stewardship of cultural property in academic, public, and private collections. A classical archaeologist by training, Dr. Lee has over two decades of experience in higher education. She currently serves on the Committee for Cultural Heritage for the Archaeological Institute of America, and is a consultant for the Cultural Property Experts On Call (CPEOC) Program at the University of Pennsylvania; she is also a Consulting Scholar for the Penn Cultural Heritage Center.

Dr. Lee has published extensively in ancient Greek art and archaeology, especially on issues of gender and classical reception. Her first book, Body, Dress, and Identity in Ancient Greece, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2015. Her second book, on ancient Greek mirrors, is under contract with Oxford University Press. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, and the American Council of Learned Societies, among others.