Tag: Mithras

A ray of light for Mithras at Hawarte on the 25th December?

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been back working on the Mithras site in the evenings, and in particular looking at Mithraea found in recent years.   I’ve created a page for these, and I’m going through them.

Last night I was searching for material about the Hawarte Mithraeum in Syria.  The site was a 5th century church, excavated in the 1970’s.  The floor of the church was bowed near the altar, where a mosaic was removed.  Some time in the mid-90’s, the floor collapsed revealing a painted chamber underneath.  Robbers were quickly on the scene, and their attempts to sell fragments of painting came to the attention of the authorities.  Michal Gowlokowski happened to see photos of some of the paintings and realised that the chamber must be a Mithraeum. He the Polish Archaeological Mission reached an agreement with the Syrian authorities, and excavated the site.  Pleasingly, all their annual reports are online in English here!

The paintings are 4th century, which makes them some of the latest Mithraic monuments.  They are also rather spectacular, as this blog (in Polish – but try using Google Translate on it) indicates!  A sample image:

Mithras, his horse, and a chained demon.
Mithras, his horse, and a chained demon.

Here’s another image, of a fresco restored by the Polish conservation team.  The image seems to have been digitally enhanced for sale, but in the process has revealed additional data, especially the face of Luna at top left:

Travel Pictures Ltd

Here’s a picture of the inside of the Mithraeum from the conservators blog here:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I’m collecting images and data, and I need to write all this up.  But notice on the left of this image a city wall, surmounted by the heads of demons, each being struck by rays (of light?).  The detail at Hawarte is better than this photo may indicate.  It adds something to our knowledge of the myth of Mithras.  At Hawarte, it begins with the war of Zeus against the Giants, followed by the birth of Mithras and the usual story, and ending with a depiction of the city of demons and the demons being killed by the light of the (unconquered) sun.

More interestingly still, Dr Gowlikowski has managed to demonstrate a connection between Mithras and the winter solstice, the 25 December.  For it seems that the chamber was so arranged that a ray of light would shine on Mithras’ face a couple of hours before sunset on that day.1  However I need to read into this with some care, and make sure that I understand the argument!

One can only praise the Polish team for their exemplary work in preserving and restoring the site.  The paintings are today at the museum in Hama.  Let us hope that they are safe!

  1. Michał Gawlikowski, Krzysztof Jakubiak, Wiesław Małkowski i Arkadiusz Sołtysiak (2011). A Ray of light for Mithras, Monografie di Mesopotamia XIV s. 169-175.  Thank heavens this is online![↩]

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Regular readers will know that through an intermediary I have commissioned a lady in Syria to type up the Arabic text of Erpenius’ 1625 edition of the second part of al-Makin.  Al-Makin was a 13th century Coptic writer.  The first part runs from the creation to the 11th year of Heraclius; the second part (which alone has been printed) is abbreviated from the Islamic writer al-Tabari and runs down to his own time.

Today a further 8 chunks of transcription appeared – 80 pages of the Erpenius edition, which is 300 pages in all.  I now have 190 pages of text in electronic form!  Only 110 to go.

This transcriber is really good and swift and efficient.

I’ve also received a bunch of rather excellent photographs of the Barberini Mithraeum in Rome from a correspondent.  The basic versions can be found here, but the photographer has kindly sent me the high resolution copies.  I shall incorporate them into the Mithras site in due time.

I am still working on the Mithras materials from time to time.  It’s the only way to attack such a vast catalogue of material.  I daresay I shall still be working on it in a few years time.  But that doesn’t matter.  Whatever I put online is useful, and whatever I never get to … well, we’re no worse off.

A bunch of errata have been sent to the typesetter for the Origen book who, it turns out, has been in hospital.

I’m still full of cold, so not doing much on any of my projects however.

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’ve been looking at some of the entries for Syria in the CIMRM, the collection of all Mithraic monuments and inscriptions.  In particular the two altars at Sia have drawn my attention.  One is easy enough to deal with — I have a photo from the original publication, plus another from the web.

But the other one is hard to deal with.  It hadn’t been published when the CIMRM came out in 1955.  All that existed was a note in Syria journal in 1952 (thankfully online at Persee.fr), promising publication together with other monuments from the Hauran by a certain Mr.  Sabeh, who was an official at the Damascus Museum at the time.  It’s really pretty hard to find a publication from that!

Google searching suggests that possibly any publication was in “Annales Archéologiques de Syrie”, whatever that is, and that the person was a Joseph Sabeh.

But of course in 1956 the Suez incident took place, at which the USA attacked its own allies, Britain and France, and gave support to its enemy Nasser.  The collapse of British and French power left a vaccuum in the region which has never been filled, and caused 50 years of constant violence and tyranny, so that was a very strange policy for the US government of the time to pursue.  But it also meant the collapse of westernising initiatives in all these countries, and it may be that Mr Sabeh ended up hanging from a lamppost, as savagery returned to the region, rather than publishing anything.

It is annoying to be unable to find material of this kind.  Interestingly all the later references to these altars suggest to me that nobody else has ever seen the publication either!

Worse yet, I have found a photograph of a smashed and reassembled tauroctony, apparently held in the Damascus Museum.  There is no indication anywhere as to its origins, and I do not find it in CIMRM.

It’s all a sobering reminder that, while the web has made much information more accessible, it has largely done so within the region of Christendom, of western Europe and the US.  Outside that pale, little is available.

Finding interesting things at the Christies web-site

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Few of us will be aware that there are good quality images of past sale objects on the website of Christie’s, the fine art dealers.  But an accident took me there this evening, and I found half a dozen objects relating to Mithras, which had been sold over the last 20 years.  There were photographs of most of these.  I rather doubt that any of them appear in the catalogue of Mithraic monuments and objects, the CIMRM, although of course it is very hard to tell.

Naturally I have added these to my own modest catalogue online of monuments and objects.  I hope that Christie’s will not mind.

One item in particular caught my eye; a statuette supposedly of Mithras-Sabazios.  Sabazios is usually identified with Jupiter or Dionysus.  What I do not see, however, is why we should suppose this to be Mithras?  Merely wearing a phrygian cap is not enough … is it?

There were no such items in the CIMRM, which is telling, perhaps.  I have included it in my own catalogue, but with misgivings.

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I did a little more on the Mithras pages.  I was able to identify one of the images that I found online and create a CIMRM page for it.  The section in CIMRM on material from Alba Iulia is not very easy to work with, and I was reduced to looking through the limited number of illustrations in the same volume, just to find out which relief I was looking at.  There must have been several Mithraea at Alba Iulia, judging from the number of reliefs of Mithras killing the bull; yet none are mentioned in the CIMRM.  One was discovered in 2010.  There must have been others.

Still, it is impossible for a single amateur like myself to do more than scratch the surface of Mithraic archaeology.  I console myself by thinking that what I do is at least useful, as far as it goes.

A Mithraic brooch in the Ashmolean in Oxford

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Last Saturday I was in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, browsing idly the Roman exhibits.  Suddenly I realised that I was looking at a set of small finds, all of Empire-period deities; and I started looking much more closely to see if there was a representation of Mithras.  And so there was!

Sadly I had no camera with me.  All I had was the camera in my smartphone, which is nothing special.  Anyway I had a go, and, after several attempts, produced this.

I also photographed the card in the window.  I have found, looking for images online, that the presence of such a card in the collection of photos is really good.  So here is mine:

The reverse of the brooch was harder to see, but there was a pin sticking out to one side from the back, just as with a modern brooch.

So … not a wasted day, in any sense!

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I spent some time this evening writing a page on the Mithraeum discovered at Lugo (ancient “Lucus Augusti” in Spain) in 2003.  Found a few images online, mostly of the dig, but also of a rather splendid granite altar, about 3 feet tall.

It was slightly frustrated to discover that the publication of the find is in the “Journal of Roman Archaeology”, which is not in JSTOR and kindly offers to sell you access at $1 per page for a PDF.  It’s a bit depressing to see that sort of greediness still lingering — as if the taxpayer had not already funded every bit of content in the journal, and funded every single subscription ever bought. 

A corrrespondent has encouraged me to go and see some of the Mithraea.  When the weather improves, perhaps I will.  It might be a nice focus for some little day-trips.

From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Last night I spent hunched over a hot scanner, transforming a text book from paper into a PDF.  My first reason for doing so is that it is simply more accessible in that format.  The library charges $8 to borrow it, and lends it to me for a fortnight.  That isn’t long enough to do more than look briefly at it.  The other reason, simply, is that in PDF form it is searchable and far more useful.  It also doesn’t occupy floor-space in these ridiculously small modern houses.  It was 400 pages, so it took a while.

While so doing, I continued to read about the fetiales priests, and their spokesman, the pater patratus.  It’s really very clear that the priests existed to ensure that, when Rome went to war, the gods were onside, or at least not on the side of the other guy.  So these chaps did the rituals that were necessary, delivered warnings and threats, and generally acted as backup-men for the senate.  Divine retribution was something that, in the Roman mind, should always happen to the other guy.  They took the possibility seriously, and acted to prevent it.  The priests were, in other words, a state responsibility.  Each of the early Latin cities did the same and had the same kinds of people, under the same names even.  Even in the time of Claudius, a representative of Lanuvium, concluding a treaty with Rome, held the same title when he performed the role and is recorded under it.  Nothing suggests that it was a permanent post; nor, really, that it was not.  But there were 20 fetiales, a delegation consisted of 4; and presumably, therefore, they chose one of their number to do the role for that trip.  It would be pretty unlikely that one poor chap had to go on every embassy, which is the other alternative.

So where does this leave us, when we find a follower of Mithras with that title?  Does it relate to the cult in any way?  Or is it merely a role that he held for other reasons, and so is mentioned on his inscription?

We shall consider it.

Meanwhile another project of mine is going forward.  Eusebius’ Commentary on Luke is being translated for the first time.  The first two columns from the Patrologia Graeca edition hit my inbox today.  The work may or may not be Eusebian, but it is certainly interesting!

The fetiales in Nonius Marcellus

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The Pater Patratus was the title of one of the priests known as fetiales, whose duties concerned treaties with other cities.1  Nonius Marcellus quotes a passage from Varro, De vita populi Romana, book 3, concerning the fetiales.2

FAETIALES apud veteres Romanos erant, qui sancto legatorum officio ab his, qui adversum populum Romanum vi aut rapinis aut injuriis hostili mente conmoverant, pignera facto foedere iure repetebant; nec bella indicebantur, quae tamen pia vocabant, priusquam quid fuisset faetialibus denuntiatum.  Varro de Vita Populi Romani lib. II.: ‘itaque bella et tarde et magna diligentia suscipiebant, quod bellum nullum nisi pium putabant geri oportere: priusquam indicerent bellum is, a quibus injurias factas sciebant, faetiales legatos res repetitum mittebant quattuor, quos oratores vocabant.’ — idem lib. III: ‘si cuius legati violati essent, qui id fecissent, quamvis nobiles essent, uti dederentur civitati statuerunt; fetialesque viginti, qui de his rebus cognoscerent, iudicarent et statuerent et constituerent.’

I.e.

The FETIALS were those among the ancient Romans who, being in the holy office of envoys, demanded, from those who had started a war against the Roman people by force or robbery or the insults of a hostile mind, once an agreement had been made, a treaty by law; nor were wars declared, which were called justified3, before a declaration had been made by the fetials.  Varro, On the life of the Roman People, book 2: “And so wars were undertaken slowly and with great deliberation, because they thought it wrong to wage any war unless it was justified.  Before they declared war, they sent four fetiales as ambassadors to make a claim to him, by whom they knew that the injuries had been committed, and they called these ‘orators’.” — likewise book 3: “If someone else’s envoys had been outraged, those who did it, even if they were noblemen, were held (?) so that they might be handed over to the [foreign] community.  And twenty fetiales, who are learned in these matters, judged, decided and legislated.”

The Pater Patratus was selected from these four, I have read somewhere.

Again, this gives us a little more background information.

  1. There is a discussion in Robert E. A. Palmer, The archaic community of the Romans, p.186.[↩]
  2. Nonius, p.529 M = 850 L.  The numerals are the page or column numbers of an ancient edition, reprinted for reference in the margins of the more modern editions.  The passage may be found in vol.3 of the W. M. Lindsay Teubner edition, on p.850.[↩]
  3. Lit. “pious”.[↩]