Triptych

Mirror

Finished wooden triptych with mirror on each panel. It has four metal hinges and a small metal brace near each corner of each mirror panel. This triptych is important because it anchors the display of family objects on the chest opposite the south-facing door of a ger. It replaces the Buddhist altar found in gers (yurts) before the Socialist period and represents the policy of atheism promulgated by the Socialist government. People would attach photos of the family or the dictator, Choibalsan and then Tsedenbal, to the mirror panels. It was made in Russia. People started using these triptych mirrors in the middle of the 1960s, after the collectivization of livestock production.