Tag: Mithras

A truly interesting article at Past Horizons:

Temple of Mithras to be restored to its original location.

Plans to dismantle and move the  reconstructed Roman Temple of Mithras to temporary storage, ahead of a more  faithful reconstruction, will begin on the 21 November 2011 by Museum of London Archaeology.

The temple, which is located at Walbrook Square, was discovered by chance in  1952 by archaeologist WF Grimes as the site was being prepared for  redevelopment.

On the final day of excavation – September 18th 1954 – the marble head  of  the god of Mithras was unearthed.  Several more amazing artefacts,  including  some sculptures, were later found – these are now on display  in the Museum of  London’s Roman gallery.

The temple was dismantled at that time and the Roman building material put  into storage.  In 1962 the temple was reconstructed on a podium adjacent to  Queen Victoria Street, 90 metres from its original site, nine metres above its  original level and set in modern cement mortar.

In December 2010, Bloomberg LP, purchased the Walbrook Square site to build  its new European headquarters building. Listed building consent was granted for  the dismantling of the current Temple of Mithras reconstruction and expert stone  masons have been commissioned by Bloomberg to carefully extract the Roman stone  and tile from the 1960s cement mortar. The temple is due to be carefully  packaged up and moved to storage for the second time.

Bloomberg LP will restore the temple to its original Roman location and in a  more historically accurate guise. Upon completion of Bloomberg’s new  development, the new reconstruction of the Temple of Mithras will be housed in a  purpose-built and publicly accessible interpretation space within their new  building.

There are two rather splendid pictures too — one of the original excavation, and the other is an aerial shot of the rather forlorn looking current site.

The Museum of London Archaeology site has the same article here.   The MOLA (terrible acronym, sets your teeth on edge) site is well designed and looks like a good one with which to keep abreast of excavations in London.

The Museum of London site is rather less good, largely aimed at school-children, although I did find this reasonably useful article on the Mithraeum here, and one showing some of the finds here.  (On the other hand a bad article on Mithras is here, mistakenly supposing  that Mithras was the same as Mithra).  There is an image of a Tauroctony from the site here.

A correspondent drew my attention to this interesting statement in a current handbook.  He also added some glosses (in square brackets) to make it generally comprehensible:

Cumont’s [late-19th- and early-20th-century] reconstruction suffered a mortal blow at the first conference of Mithraic studies, held in Manchester in 1971 (GORDON, 1975), and has not been revived since.  The past twenty-five years have instead given rise to many—mutually exclusive—theories on the origin and nature of the Mithraic mysteries, which virtually all share a stress on the absence of [clear] links between [Iranian] Zoroastrianism and [largely post-Christian Greco-Roman] Mithraism.^[1].

That seems to hit the nail on the head.

The Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible is not a handbook that I have encountered before.  But the material on Mithra/Mithras — present in this volume because of the names Mithredath (Ezra 1:8) and Mithradates (1 Esdras 2:12) — seems interesting.  It is a digest of secondary literature, naturally enough, and I found that it was particularly useful for Mitra, the Persian deity, and nicely drew together the various seemingly contradictory elements that make up the aspects of this god.

1. ^[1]H. J. W. Drijvers & A. F. de Jong, “Mithras,” Dictionary of deities and demons in the Bible (Eerdmans/Brill, 1999), p. 579↩

In the Budapest National Museum, there is a rather splendid bronze plaque depicting a tauroctony.  Julianna Lees has uploaded to Picasa this photo, which I came across this evening.  (I hope that link works, by the way: for some reason it isn’t at all obvious what the URL is).  She gives the date of the item as 213 AD.

While looking at it intently, something caught my eye.  Along the bottom are seven figures (you’ll have to click on the image to see it full size).

Now the number seven in the cult of Mithras always reminds us of the seven grades of initiation.  Is this, perhaps, what we are looking at?

Notice that all of them seem to be wearing armour.  And each of them has something different over their right shoulder.  The third from the left has horns on his head and has something — a torch over his shoulder.  The third from the right has a caduceus behind him and a winged helmet.  The middle one seems to have a bird on his head — a crow?

I am by no means sure of what I am looking at.  But once again it highlights the possibility of gaining more information from a comparative study of the monuments.

Mithras, the subterranean sun, must be the most unfortunate of ancient deities.  There is so much twaddle talked online.  A correspondent today drew my attention to what must easily be the most ignorant statement about him that I have ever seen.  And there is considerable competition for that title, you know!  As usual, it is delivered with an utter certainty that Torquemada himself might have considered just a bit too fanatical.

The commenter here gives us the usual spiel about how he/she was brought up to be a Christian, and “studied” other religions.

In coming across zoroastrianism I was therefore stunned. Mithra, the son of the god Zoroastra, was born of a virgin on December 25th in a field surrounded by shepherds. After a 40 day period called Estra he died and was entombed, after which he rose on the third day. Ceremonies recalling this event used a rock to represent the man-god, and priests would eat bread and drink wine. It is no exaggeration or hyperbole to say this was the most horrifying realization of my life. This pulled all the certainty of my life out from under me.

After which we get the usual circumlocutions for “I decided to adopt the values of the age I happen to live in, instead of those of my parents.”  Such mindless conformity is unlikely to end well, of course.

But I must say I was fascinated.  I mean, how can you “study” Zoroastrianism and not know who Zoroaster was?  And plainly the poster does not!

What I’d really like to know, tho, is the source of this nonsense.  Someone, somewhere, must have come up with this.  Does anyone know who?

Looking around Picasa, I came across the following fascinating photograph by John Bartram of a pair of tauroctonies (click on the image for a larger view):

 

Now the resolution is a little low but … what is the script on the lower tauroctony?  The upper inscription is Greek, plainly enough, although I can’t quite read it.  But the lower script looks very unfamiliar.

Anyone know?

UPDATE: I find that I have some pages on disk taken from the 1936 publication of the Mithraeum.^[1]  On p.83 I find the following:

The smaller cult bas-relief (PI. XXIX, I) has a double inscription: one (of three lines) in Palmyrene is inscribed on the base of the bas-relief inside a tabella ansata, the other on the face of the left side of the molding. Letters are cut and painted red. On the text of these inscriptions Professor Torrey submits the following note:

“Below the smaller Mithras relief is a Palmyrene inscription in three lines. This is accompanied by a vertical line of Greek (0.24 m. long) at the left of the relief (no. 145), repeating the name and title of the author. The first letters of the latter inscription are so worn away as to be barely legible; it reads (height of letters 0.01.5-0.021 m.) : 

ΕΘΦΑΝΕΙ ΙΣΤΑΡΤΗΓΑ (στρατηγός)^[2]

The Palmyrene inscription reads as follows (0.41 m.,,0.06 m., letters 0.015 m.): 

“A good memorial; made by Ethpeni the strategos, son of Zabde`a, who is in command of the archers who are in Dura. In the month Adar of the year 480 (168 A. D.).

“The name Ethpeni is otherwise known as Palmyrene, and the pronunciation of the final syllable is now made certain by the Greek transcription. This is a simple verbal form, the ethpe`el perfect: …”

The following philological notes make plain that Palmyrene is a dialect of Aramaic, as mention of the ethpeel form makes plain to anyone with a smattering of Syriac.  The tabella ansata is the rectangular box with triangles at the end.

On p.84 Torrey’s note is continued:

The second and larger bas-relief of the cult niche (Pls. XXIX, 2-XXX) bear an inscription in Greek (no. 846) in two lines (0.93 m. x 0.07 m., height of letters, 0.025 m.). It occupies the front of the base of the bas·relief. It is not enclosed in a tabella ansata. Letters are cut and painted red.

Θεοῦ (sic!) Μίθραν ἐπόησεν Ζηνόβιος ὁ καὶ Εἰαειβᾶς Ἰαριβωλέους στρατηγὸς τοξοτῶν ἔτους δευτέρον πυ’ (170/1 A.D.)

 There follow some indistinct scratched lines, probably a filler like the usual ivy leaves.

On the next page the text of a Latin inscription elsewhere in the building is given, which indicates the restoration templum dei solis invicti Mithrae — the Mithraeum — under the three emperors Septimius Severus, Caracalla, and Geta, who ruled together in 209-212 A.D. This inscription was added by a Roman legionary vexillation, and marks a subsequent layer of occupation.

1. ^[1]M. I. Rostovtzeff &c, The excavations at Dura-Europos. Preliminary report of the seventh and eighth seasons of work, Yale, 1939.↩
2. ^[2]I.e. Ethpani the General↩

An idle search in Google images for “Mithra Zoroastrianism” brought up precisely NO images of the Zoroastrian god.  It’s quite interesting, really, not least because I have no idea how he was depicted — if he was depicted — in reliefs.

It also brought up a number of unfamiliar tauroctonies of Mithras.  The need for a large collection of images of Mithraic sculptures etc was never more apparent to me than today.  We can clearly learn a great deal, simply by comparison, without undue theorising.  I was almost tempted to start locating images and getting my camera out!

Mind you, an online list of places to visit and photograph would itself be a useful thing.  We don’t even have that!  If we could put such a thing online, one might get enthusiasts to contribute by visiting museums.  It’s a wiki-project if ever there was one.  

How I curse the wretched troll, who cold-bloodly plotted to wreck the Wikipedia Mithras article, and drive off all the honest contributors, for destroying the best means of collaborative work in this area! 

I wonder how else it might be done.  How does one contact Mithras enthusiasts?  A few people doing day-trips to museums might contribute much!

I want to write an article on the Roman cult of Mithras for my website, using the material that I originally contributed to Wikipedia, since I am reluctant for that to disappear.  But of course I also want to add to it as I learn more on the subject.  

The article will be what the Wikipedia article should be, if that place were not today overrun by trolls intent on forcing any contributor to spend more time on edit wars than on contributing.  It must be balanced, objective, informed, and contain nothing of my own opinion.  As an amateur, my opinion has no value, of course.  But the opinions of scholars can be quoted, provided that they specialise in the subject.  If they make a statement of fact, that statement must be tied to the primary data, and if it is not, then it too must be treated as suspect.  There is so much nonsense in circulation, that a very sceptical approach is necessary.

So how to do it, physically?  The Wikipedia mechanism is very easy to use, and indeed is designed to be compelling and addictive.  But using Mediawiki is not really an option.  I always feel that the also-Wiki’s look rather forlorn.  But the footnoting mechanism of Wikipedia is very convenient, and I need to make sure that I can do something similar with this.  I don’t want to manually renumber footnotes, nor generate a table of contents.

I have a text file with the last reliable version of the Wikipedia article, back from February, and I started knocking together a Visual Basic utility to turn it into HTML, as an experiment.  It is trivial enough to convert the headers, for instance.  But anything that goes over a single line is harder to do.

But ideally we would retain the text version as the master, and just regenerate the HTML as required.  VB is not a good choice for this — something in PHP would be better.  But little by little.

I also want to have a page for each image I use, which I can reference properly itself.

Finally there needs to be the equivalent of a “talk” page, where I can express some kind of opinions about the material, or an explanation of how it is put together or what is not there and why.