Acclaimed esoteric scholar Peter Mark Adams talks about his latest book, ‘Ritual and Epiphany in the Mysteries of Mithras’, interviewed by professor, writer and host of The New Mithraeum podcast Andreu Abuín.
The concluding book of Apuleius’ Golden Ass (or Metamorphoses), where Lucius, the story’s protagonist, undergoes initiation into the mysteries of Isis and Osiris.
Un estudio de David Gustavo López, investigador de las tradiciones y del patrimonio cultural, propone una lectura en clave mitraica de varios relieves de la Catedral de León.
Dedication from Simitthus mentioning the restoration of a monument and a vow fulfilled to Cautes and Cautopates during the reign of Caracalla and Julia Maesa.
Saul cutting the oxen to pieces poses as Mithras Tauroctonos in this painting, which adorns the mantelpiece of Henry II’s bedroom at the Château d’Écouen near Paris.
In the second half of the 4th century, a Mithraic temple was established within an earlier spring sanctuary at Septeuil, where the cult of the nymphs and Mithraic practices appear to have coexisted.
Glad to be helpful. I can share two additional photographs of the site, showing the overall layout and its unusual position along the modern road. They don’t add archaeological detail, but they may help convey the atmosphere and the spatial context of the sanctuary as it appears today.
Near the village of Septeuil, in the Yvelines department (Île-de-France), lie the very faint remains of a Mithraic sanctuary discovered in the 19th century. The site sits directly along the modern national road linking Mantes-la-Jolie to Houdan — an unexpected location for a mithraeum, usually associated with caves, secluded areas or buildings set apart from traffic.
Today almost nothing is preserved: a slight depression in the ground, a few displaced stones, and a modern marker indicating the approximate position of the shrine. This near-complete disappearance gives the place a strangely elusive character, as if the sanctuary had slowly been absorbed by the contemporary landscape.
The photographs show what can still be seen on site. Despite the minimal remains, the location retains a quiet atmosphere, suspended between the flow of present-day traffic and the memory of a mystery cult once practiced here.
Ernest Renan suggested that without the rise of Christianity, we might all have embraced the cult of Mithras. Nevertheless, it has had a lasting influence on secret societies, religious movements and popular culture.
Salve Ennio,
The CIMRM is 1283. Unfortunately, I don’t know the inventory number wherever it is exposed. Please, let me know if you find out.
Vale,
TNM
