纪录片《大英博物馆世界简史》 058日本铜镜（3）（在线收听）

The mirror is circular, it's about the size of a saucer, and it sits comfortably in my hand. There isn't a handle, but it would have had a loop fixed to it, so that you could hang it from a hook. But it's not a mirror as you or I would think of it - the modern, silver-backed reflecting mirror doesn't really come into the world until around the sixteenth century. Early mirrors like this bronze one were all made of metal, which was then so highly polished that you could literally see your face in it.

Like so much else in Japanese culture, mirrors originally came to Japan from China. This week's programmes are focussed on how, around a thousand years ago, cultures across the world were trading goods and spreading new ideas and beliefs. Throughout the eighth and ninth centuries Japan had been an energetic participant in these exchanges, particularly with China. But lying right at the end of all the great Asian trade routes, and isolated by sea, Japan, unlike almost any other culture, was able to opt out of this interconnected world. It's an option Japan has exercised several times in its history, and it did it most strikingly in the year 894, when it stopped all official contact with China and effectively cut itself off from the rest of the world.