Tinas Cliniar/Clenar—The Guardians of the Gate: A Rare Bronze Mirror with Two Dioscuri Figures from the Third–Second Century BCE.

In these notes, a bronze mirror from the National Archaeological Museum–Sofia is identified based on its form and decoration as an object with close ties to the well-known Etruscan bronze mirrors. Its iconography puts it in a group of mirrors depicting scenes with the Dioscuri/Διόσκουροι—Κάστωρ and Πολυδεύκης, also known as Castor and Pollux in Roman mythology. The aim of the article is to examine the bronze mirror within the context of known examples from this iconographic group and to propose an interpretation and dating. In terms of typology, the bronze mirror from Sofia belongs to the Etruscan mirrors, on which the Dioscuri are depicted on the front, and the dokana/δόκανα on the back with a triangular pediment, followed by one or two areas whose infill pattern is polyvariant. There are no precise data about the discovery context of the mirror from Sofia, as well as the circumstances of its acquisition. Based on the stylistic and decorative features—a simplified composition of standardized, stylized figures with unrealistic anatomical elements and a stylized ram's head at the end of the handle—the two-figure mirrors are attributed to the second half of the third century BCE to the first decades of the second century BCE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]