Search Results for: Mithras
A new nadir in atheist behaviour
I find that the Wikipedia Mithras article is currently being vandalised by an anonymous atheist who has read one article (by Marvin Meyer) in one non-scholarly book on the subject, and is determined that all articles in Wikipedia shall reflect what he believes is the truth — that Christianity and Mithras are somehow connected. With […]
From my diary
I’ve spent some time collecting literary testimonies about the origins of Serapis. For the moment, these are here. A useful article by Richard Gordon is here. Meanwhile Andrew Eastbourne has agreed to review the translation of 4 letters of Isidore of Pelusium which reached me earlier this week. Yesterday I also went back to the […]
The calendar of Antiochus and the new birth of the sun
Roger Beck, The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire: Mysteries of the Unconquered Sun, Oxford University Press, 2006, makes the following interesting remark on p.209-10: … the nominal solstice on 25 December, becomes the Sun’s birthday, the ‘Natalis Invicti’, as the Calendar of Filocalus famously notes—to which phrase in Greek (heliou genethlion) […]
A new harvest of myths
Christmas is coming, and with it comes the annual flood of stale old stories cynically designed to cast doubt on whether Christmas is a Christian festival, and eagerly believed by those who feel that way inclined. The favourite “authority” for these folk is Wikipedia — once one of their friends has suitably amended it, of […]
Images from the Santa Prisca Mithraeum
In the Mithraeum under the church of Santa Prisca in Rome, there are a number of verses written on plaster around the walls, in between or above various images in the frescoes. The frescoes themselves have been badly damaged, partly because of the poor quality of the material on which they were placed, but also […]
How not to publish an excavation
I’m still (10:30am) in the West Room in Cambridge University Library, where I have been working on Vermaseren’s The excavations in the Mithraeum of the church of Santa Prisca. The objective is to obtain an image of the inscription said to record that Mithras “saved” people by the shedding of the eternal blood, not least in […]
How do we get people to photograph stuff overseas?
Under the church of Santa Prisca in Rome is a crypt which was once a Mithraeum. It was excavated in the 1960’s by Martin Vermaseren and G. Van Essen, and contains some striking frescos. But it is probably best known for a series of inscriptions which I think are scratched in plaster. One of these, […]
More on the Santa Prisca Mithraeum
The inscription painted on crumbling stucco in the Mithraeum under Santa Prisca has provoked much discussion. This image comes from Martin Vermaseren, The excavations in the Mithraeum of the Church of Santa Prisca in Rome, p.215 in the Google preview. It’s a diagram, not a plate; although apparently plate LXVIII shows it. These are lines 13-15 […]
The Santa Prisca Mithraeum in Rome
Under the church of Santa Prisca in Rome is the remains of a Mithraeum. It is notable because of an inscription somewhere in it, which is often supposed to refer to Mithras “saving” people “by the eternal blood”. There seems to be more than a little doubt about whether it really does say this, tho. […]