Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, information access, and more
Among the nonsense that circulates on the web is an interesting claim, which may be found in the old online Catholic Encyclopedia, and spread into atheist literature via the medium of Joseph Wheless’ Forgery in Christianity.. It is perhaps most accessible today by means of the Christ Conspiracy by a certain Acharya S., a poor woman […]
CIL VI, 1779 is a statue base. Blessedly, a photograph is online at BBAW here, which I borrow (right), together with a transcription and a German translation. I believe the monument may now be in the Capitoline museum in Rome. The statue which stood atop it has, alas, long since vanished, but on the base […]
Roger Beck’s collection of essays, Beck on Mithraism, has arrived at my local library and I have taken possession of it. It will be interesting to look at, although I find that it is difficult to concentrate on any project while I am working at full pressure in my day-job. I’m still working through Manfred […]
Great news – Behn’s Das Mithrasheiligtum zu Dieberg, De Gruyter (1928) has arrived. Here’s an image of the title page as proof! The discovery of the Mithraeum at Dieberg was something of a watershed. I don’t know if there were monographs dedicated to individual Mithraea before then, but it set a pattern for such monographs […]
I’ve never actually owned a printed copy of Manfred Clauss’ The Roman cult of Mithras, which is the standard introduction to the subject. I’ve made photocopies of bits of it. Latterly I found online somewhere a PDF of the whole thing. But I’ve never had a copy. Well, last week I cracked and bought one. […]
I’ve started to look at the material on the earliest Mithraic monuments. This is frustrating, because of what I know is online and cannot see! Thus I cannot see pp.34-35 of Beck on Mithraism, even though I know it is online. If you can, and feel like sending me some screen grabs, I would be […]
I apologise to my non-techie readers. But this issue cost me a couple of hours of my life, and I can’t find anything about it on the web. So I feel morally obliged to write something. Yesterday a kind reader drew my attention to some mysterious behaviour in the new Mithras pages. Lines that contained […]
I’ve just added a page to my new Mithras site for CIMRM 1083. This monument is perhaps the most complicated and well-preserved example of a carving of Mithras killing the bull. It shows all sorts of events from his (unknown) mythology in side panels. In other words, it’s a gem. Vermaseren states that just about […]
I’ve continued to work on the new site about the Roman cult of Mithras. I’ve added some more monuments to the page of selected monuments. Butr today I went through the section on the main page about initiation into the mysteries, and looked up all the material and checked it. The results were not that […]
For the last week or so, I have been adding extra material to the new Mithras site from inscriptions and monuments. I’ve been concentrating on the section on British monuments in Vermaseren’s CIMRM (collection of Mithraic monuments). It’s been really quite interesting, ferretting around in Google Books trying to find this article or that book, […]