Daily Gazette/38

On the York Tauroctony from C. Wellbeloved, Eburacum (1842) This Mithraic group was found in the year 1747, at the depth of ten feet below the surface, by some workmen, who were engaged in digging a cellar in Micklegate, opposite to St. Martin's Church. Mr. Drake, to whom it was immediately shown, 'being at a loss,' as he candidly confessed, 'what to make of it, but judging it some representation of a heathen sacrifice or game, sent to his friend, Dr. Stukeley, as just a drawing of it as could be taken;' whose explanation of it was afterwards communicated by Mr. Drake to the Philosophical Society, and published in the Transactions of the Society for the years 1743-1750, Vol. X. p. 1311. This curious relic came, whether by gift or purchase the author knows not, into the possession of Mrs. Sandercock, of York, by whom it was bequeathed, with other property, to the late Dr. Robert Cappe, youngest son of the late Rev. Newcome Cappe; and after his death was presented, by the advice of the author, (the Yorkshire Philosophical Society not being then in existence,) to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral, who placed it in the vestibule of the Minster library. the Tauroctony stone is now in the Yorkshire Museum..