The Dura Mithraeum
The Dura Mithraeum is the posthumous publication of Franz Cumont’s final major study of the Mithraeum of Dura-Europos. Edited, translated and introduced by Eric David Francis, the paper was published in 1975 in Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies. Based on a manuscript completed shortly before Cumont’s death in 1947, it provides a comprehensive synthesis of the archaeological evidence from the sanctuary, including its architecture, reliefs, paintings, graffiti and inscriptions.
Francis’s introduction explains the history of the unpublished manuscript, which remained among the Dura-Europos archives at Yale University for almost twenty-five years before being brought to light. Rather than presenting new excavation data, Cumont re-examines the material discovered during the 1933–1935 excavations and integrates it into his broader interpretation of Roman Mithraism. The publication preserves Cumont’s final thoughts on one of the most important Mithraic sanctuaries ever excavated and remains an essential document for the historiography of Mithraic studies, even where its conclusions have been superseded by later scholarship.
