Before the advent of mirrors, in ancient times, when people had not yet mastered the technology of metal casting, they could only see their reflection in still water, such as in a puddle or lake. Later, they began using water poured into a wide-mouthed and relatively deep vessel for this purpose, as was done in ancient China.

As for the first mirrors made of copper and bronze, they appeared at the turn of the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE in Southern Turkmenistan and Northern Iran. From that time, the widespread use of metal mirrors began. Mirrors made of bronze, brass, silver, and iron became very popular.

Due to certain qualities of mirrors, people almost immediately began to endow them with religious and magical properties, which was reflected in the decorative designs of the mirrors’ backs. Typically, they depicted certain thematic compositions, patterns, and narrative drawings. These symbols conveyed wishes for abundance, vitality, health, children, longevity, and more. In addition, mirrors often featured incantations. For this reason, researchers classify ancient mirrors as highly informative archaeological finds.

The process of treating the reflective side in ancient times was multi-stage. After casting the mirror, all irregularities were scraped off its surface with a file or coarse-grained sandstone. Then the side was sanded with stone abrasives or iron filings. The polishing process followed. For this, powdered whetstone or seashells from marine mollusks, and pearl powder were used. The final stage of processing the reflective side was its amalgamation, that is, coating with a mixture of mercury and tin, or less often, with silver and gold. After that, the surface of the mirror was polished once more with an aqueous solution of jade ground into powder. Charcoal was also used, mainly from valuable wood species, since it was believed that it was such coal that helped to achieve the best result.