From my diary

A little while back I started developing some PHP scripts to support the new Mithras Project pages that I intend to create.  Today I went back to look at these, to see if I could merge them into what I have been doing with a top-level menu.  And I found … that I don’t seem […]

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From my diary

Updated versions of the translation of the Passio Petri and Passio Pauli from the Acts of ps.Linus have arrived.  I will need to read these tonight, but they must be nearly complete, which is good news. I have been making enquiries about the supposed existence of a third volume of Maarten Vermaseren’s CIMRM collection of […]

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The fire of Cautopates

On a Spanish site, I find the following photograph of Cautes and Cautopates, the twin side-kicks of Mithras.  It’s remarkable because the figure of Cautopates is still partly coloured!  And so, clearly, we can see that the objects that they carry are indeed lit torches. Considering how universally this is assumed, it is nice to […]

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From my diary

I’ve been thinking again about how a reliable Mithras site might look.  One of the problems has been layout.  I’ve had great difficulty finding a format for the top-level page that worked for me.  But I had something of a breakthrough last night, when I started working from the Tertullian Project home page as a basis.  […]

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Reading what ex-Wikipedians have to say

Regular readers will know that I had a very bad experience attempting to contribute to the Mithras article on Wikipedia, when I was the target of a deliberate campaign of violence and defamation by an obvious troll operating at least two accounts, who simply wanted to own my work and push a falsehood.  It ended with a […]

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From my diary

News on the translation that I commissioned of the 4th century Acts of ps.Linus .  The second half arrived last night!  That’s the Passio Pauli portion.  I’ve reviewed it, and it seems very close to completion, bar a couple of sentences.  That’s good news, and it will be good to have that complete and paid […]

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From my diary

I have been away on holiday for a while, so most of my projects have taken a back seat. I’ve received the first draft of a translation of the 4th century Acts of ps.Linus, or rather of the “Peter” half.  This I hope to look at today. I’ve also started to do more work on […]

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A newly discovered Mithraeum in Scotland

A correspondent writes to tell me of the discovery of a Mithraeum in Scotland, at Inveresk.  There is an announcement in Epistula 1 (PDF), page 5, the organ of the Roman Society, from John Gooder (AOC Archaeology Group) and Fraser Hunter (National Museums Scotland): Excavations on the eastern edge of the fort complex of Inveresk in East […]

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Lanciani on the pagan revival of the fourth century

Quite by chance I found myself looking at a vivid description of the pagan revival of the late 4th century AD, in the elderly pages of Rudolpho Lanciani’s Ancient Rome in the light of recent discoveries (1888).  Lanciani was an Italian archaeologist who was digging in Rome, and unearthing all manner of ancient inscriptions.  His […]

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A gem with a Mithraic tauroctony of the 1st century BC?

An email from a correspondent pointed me to an image in Wikipedia Commons, itself from the Walters Art Gallery, of an intaglio ring, and enquired about the date of the item.  The item consists of an ancient gold ring, with a depiction of the killing of the bull by Mithras cut into a gem of sard.  It […]

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