The New Mithraeum

Cet ouvrage propose une étude d’ensemble du culte de Mithra en Afrique romaine. S’appuyant sur un rigoureux examen croisé des sources épigraphiques, archéologiques et littéraires, il restitue l’histoire et les spécificités de ce culte à mystères sur le sol africain.

Gold lamina from Ciciliano showing a nude, serpent-entwined Aion-Kronos holding a key and surrounded by Greek voces magicae (2nd c. CE).

The lion-headed figure from Rusicade, now Skikda, holds a key in both hands and features a pine cone beside his feet.

Inscription recording the dedication of a mithraeum at Tiddis by a group of cultores who built the sanctuary at their own expense.

The Mithraeum was housed in a cave. The vault is almost dome-shaped and in front of the cave there is enough space for a possible adjacent temple.

An inscription mentioning a speleum decorated by Publilius Ceionius suggests the location of a mithraeum in Cirta, the capital of Numidia.

Many of the inscriptions and sculptures of the site were kept in a museum which has been destroyed.

This altar, found in Tazoult تازولت, Algeria, was dedicated to the god Sol Mithras by a certain Florus.

This altar found in Lambèse, now Tazoult, Algeria, bears the inscription of a certain Celsianus for the health of two men to the god Sol Unconquered Mithras.

Statue of a standing person in eastern attire in red, local limestone with inscription.

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.

Translation and Introductory Essay by Robert Lamberton. Station Hill Press Barrytown, New York 1983.

Rich relief on display at the Virginia Museum of Fine Art showing Mithras sacrificing the bull accompanied by Cautes and Cautopates.

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.

Archaeologists at Doliche are now excavating houses around the vast Mithras temple to learn how people lived beside the sanctuary.

The Mithraeum of Tazoult / Lambèse is one of the best preserved Mithras’s temples in Africa.

The Mithraic nature of the frescoes of Oea, according to the scholars Cumont and Vermaseren, is now questioned.

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.