CIMRM Supplement - Smashed Tauroctony relief. Damascus, Syria


From: here.By Dick Osseman. Damascus National Museum, 3 April 2009, image 7728. "This will be (sic) a representation of Mithra(s) sacrificing the astral bull, a tauroctony. No information given."

UPDATE: This is, apparently, CIMRM 89.

I do not know whether this relates to CIMRM 90, which is also a fragment; but that is supposedly in the museum in Aleppo.

Mithras sacrifices the bull. Top left is a bust of Sol, top right is a bust of Luna. Cautes with torch uplifted is to the left; Cautopates with torch pointed down is to the right. The dog leaps up to lick the blood. The scorpion attacks the genitals. Unusually, but as with the Syrian relief at Sî`, CIMRM 88, the snake licks the semen of the bull rather than its blood. The tail of the bull droops, and does not end in ears of corn.


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