Peregrinum 2016 The Mysteries of Mithras and Other Mystic Cults in the Roman World Tarquinia , Italy Thursday , June 16 — Sunday , June 19 , 2016 Directors (original) (raw)
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Mithras in Etruria. Characteristics of a Mystery Cult in the Roman Regio VII
The Mysteries of Mithras and Other Mystic Cults in the Roman World, 2018
The aim of the article is to cast a light on the nature of the cult of Mithras in Central Italy, focusing on the administrative division of Roman Etruria. Indeed, the Regio VII has emerged as a privileged territory to explore different aspects of the cult, due to the great variety of its artefacts. Hence, a model of diffusion of the Mithraic marble religious artifacts across the region and through the Roman main viability is presented, highlighting its dependence on public officials, responsible for both spreading government-endorsed iconographies and managing the Imperial marble industry. Consequently, the active role played by the Imperial administration in promoting the Mithras worship in Etruria is discussed, as well as the cult diffusion among the lower classes and (by the Middle/Late Empire) the aristocratic élites. The last phases of the cult within the region are also explored, showing how the Mithraic spelaea were dismissed according to a variety of different modalities during the first decades of the 5th century AD, ranging from violent destruction to pacific abandonment of their structures.
This article deals with the still unresolved question of the origins of the Roman cult of Mithras. After a brief history of the scholarship dealing with this topic, individual mithraea, inscriptions, and passages in literary texts which have been dated to the earliest period of the cult’s existence are evaluated. On the basis of this re-evaluation, some provisional conclusions concerning the question of Mithraic origins are made, namely that (1) the earliest evidence comes from the period 75-125 CE but remains, until the second half of the 2nd century CE, relatively negligible; (2) the geographical distribution of early evidence does not allow for a clear identification of the geographical location from which the cult started to spread, which suggests that (3) the cult made effective use of Roman military infrastructure and trade routes and (4) was transmitted, at least initially, due to the high mobility of the first propagators. However, it must be acknowledged that, at present, we can neither conclusively identify its place of origin nor the people who initiated the cult. In addition it is impossible to describe the specific historical circumstances in which these formative processes should be placed.
The Mystery of Mithras: Exploring the Heart of a Roman Cult
Musée royal de Mariemont, 2021
The exhibition “The Mystery of Mithras: Exploring the Heart of a Roman Cult” is being presented at the Musée royal de Mariemont from 20 November 2021 to 17 April 2022, then at the Musée Saint-Raymond de Toulouse from 14 May 2022 to 30 October 2022, and lastly at the Archäologisches Museum Frankfurt from 19 November 2022 to 15 April 2023. The catalogue prepared for these different venues pursues three main objectives: proposing, thanks to the contributions of some 75 international experts, a new synthesis for a complex and fascinating cult that reflects the remarkable advances in our knowledge in recent decades; promoting by means of high-quality illustrations numerous monuments, both famous and unknown, that represent so many pieces of the giant Mithraic puzzle; lastly, to restore Mithras to his proper place in the religious landscape of yesterday and the European culture of today. For ordering the catalogue: accueil@mariemont.be
The Mysteries of Mithras, dedicated to the eponymous Persian divinity, was one of several mystery cults of the ancient world. It flourished during the second and third centuries CE throughout the Roman Empire, but with special frequency in Italy and the frontier provinces along the Rhine and Danube. Those initiated into the Mysteries met in special cult rooms or complexes known to them as "caves", but which in modern research are most commonly referred to as mithraea (s. mithraeum). Their defining features are a central aisle flanked by podia with a cult niche at the far end, typically displaying the bull-slaying Mithras. Since the late 19 th century, the research of the cult has traditionally concerned itself with issues regarding the cult's origins as well as its doctrines and beliefs. However, it has been noted that this traditional approach includes an undervaluing of both the role of ritual within the Mysteries and the design of the mithraeum with regards to the enacted rituals. By instead focusing on these shortcomings the present study will suggest a practice-oriented way of viewing the role of ritual within the cult and how this might have related to the physical space of the mithraeum.
Acta Antiqua Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 2018
Since M. J. Vermaseren’s visit to Romania and the publication of the second volume of his monumental corpus on Mithraic finds in 1960, the once-called “Mithraic Studies” has had numerous paradigmatic shifts and changed its major focus points. Besides the important changes in the theoretical background of the research, the archaeological material regarding the Mithraic finds of Dacia – one of the richest provinces in this kind of material – has also been enriched. Several new corpora focusing on the Mithraic finds of Dacia were published in the last decade. This article will present the latest currents in the study of the Roman cult of Mithras and will give an updated list of finds and several clarifications to the latest catalogue of Mithraic finds from the province
The archaeology of Mithraism. New finds and approaches to Mithras-worship, a cura di M.M. McCarty, M. Egri (BABesch Suppl., 39), Leuven - Paris – Bristol, 2020
Ancient Ostia presents the largest amount of urban mithraea in the Roman world. Although the city is not yet digged in its entirety, every district has worship places dedicated to god Mithra. Thanks to the publication, sixty years ago, of the Giovanni Becatti’s catalogue in the “Scavi di Ostia” series, these mithraea are well known, but much remains to be done. Recently the research carried out by the Ostia Marina Project of the University of Bologna has led to the discovery of a new mithraeum – so-called of “Colored Marbles” – built in the second half of the IV century A.D. in the neighborhood outside Porta Marina. From this finding, a research project has been proposed, aimed at a new systematic study of the ostian mithraism, in an attempt to understand its final stages of life and the ways of decline and abandonment of the mithraea between IV and V century A.D., especially in connection with the victory of Christianity and its radicalization in the ancient city. On this occasion, some research will be presented, focusing mainly on the Aldobrandini mithraeum, the mithraeum of Fructosus, the mithraeum of the Snakes (Serpenti) and the so-called mithraeum of the Thermae of Mithra, with special attention to the new structural reliefs, carried out with modern bi- and three-dimensional techniques, and to the analysis of still unpublished archive materials.
Roman Mithraism: the Evidence of the Small Finds
Roman Mithraism. The Evidence of the Finds, 2004
The papers of the Tienen conference are to be seen in the light of the concern for methodological innovation. The title ‘Small Finds’ was intended as a pragmatic stimulus to this end, and as a deliberate contrast to earlier Mithraic conferences, whose orientation has been exclusively towards the history of religions. It also however marked the desire to pull the Mithraic finds of the NW provinces out from the shadow of the more dramatic and splendid sites in Italy, or, now, Syria, and highlight the distinctive contribution that the new archaeology can make to the re-construction of the cult in this region. The conference however also offered the opportunity of drawing attention to some very recently-discovered Mithraic temples – apart from Tienen itself, those at Bornheim-Sechtem near Bonn (C. Ulbert), in the grounds of the well-known villa at Orbe-Boscéaz, SW of Lac de Neuchâtel, Canton Vaud (T. Luginbühl et al.), and the temple in the Crypta Balbi in the southern Campus Martius in Rome (M. Ricci, L. Saguì)– it was unfortunately not possible to obtain reports about the two temples at Güglingen (SW of Heilbronn), or Künzing, or M.-A. Gaidon-Bunuel’s further work on the temple at Septeuil. We may add to this group the presentations of accounts of old excavations of mithraea (A. Hensen on ‘Lopodunum II’; M. Clauss & A. Hensen on the ‘Eiskeller’ at Bliesdalheim). The opening paper by A. Schatzmann, building on his admirable report on the ‘small finds’ from older excavations which can be used to reconstruct ritual action (to be published in the BAR International Series), calls attention to the fundamental issue of norm versus local peculiarity, and sketches the variety of different ways in which ‘small finds’ can add to our understanding of Mithraic ritual. This approach is picked up by L. Allason-Jones in her paper on the mithraea of Hadrian’s Wall. There follows a group of papers mainly devoted to the taphonomy and/or the ceramics of particular temples, and the inferences concerning ritual practice that can be drawn from them: Tienen (M. Martens, A. Lentacker et al.), Bornheim-Sechtem (J.-C. Wulfmeier), Orbe-Boscéaz (J. Monnier, Y. Mühlemann), Martigny (F. Wiblé, C. Olive), Crypta Balbi (J. de Grossi Mazzorin). A second group concentrates on different aspects of specialised Mithraic ceramics: incense-burners (J. Bird), the waste from the Rheinzabern potteries (M. Thomas), the reconstruction of the now well-known Wetterau-ware Schlangengefäß from the Ballplatz-Mainz (I. Huld-Zetsche), and the issue of the specific character of these snake-decorated vessels as represented by older finds from Carnuntum (V. Gassner). A final paper in this group tackles the finds from an analogous, non-Mithraic, complex in Apulum (C. Höpken). A third group can only be described as ‘miscellaneous’, since the papers approach the issue of small finds in unrelated, though defensible, ways (R. Gordon, G. Dorin Sicoe, M. Marquart, M. Weiß, E. Sauer, K. Sas). Finally, it was felt that it would be useful to add a fairly complete bibliography of publications on Mithraism since Roger Beck’s ‘Mithraism since Franz Cumont’ (1984), a list which itself indicates something of the shifts of interest which have occurred within the field over the past vicennium. (from Introduction of R. Gordon)
The Cult of Mithras in Apulum: communities and individuals
Zerbini, Livio (ed.), Atti del convegno "II. International conference on Roman Danubian provinces", 2015, 403-418 The cult of Mithras in Apulum, due to its rich epigraphic and sculptural heritage, was analyzed by Romanian and foreign scholars focusing mainly on iconography, and recently, on socio – religious aspects. Now, the recent Mithraic finds open new research perspectives, focusing mainly on the archaeological material, the particular aspects of the small finds and the interdisciplinary methods of the most recent studies. The increased archaeological, epigraphic and sculptural material also urged the need of revising Marteen Vermaseren’s unavoidable, but in many parts outdated corpus. For Dacia, a corpus or a CIMRM Supplementum is now much more auspicious than ever. Excepting some new and important synthesizes about the recently known material, a monograph on the Cult of Mithras in Dacia is still missing. The new discoveries will hopefully open new perspectives in the research of the cult, at least in the micro – regional context of Apulum, the largest conurbation of Dacia. Future research must focus especially on the archaeology of the cult and some neglected aspects of this religion foreshadowing also the importance of museum –pedagogy in the modern urban landscape.