This site uses cookies to offer you a better browsing experience.
Find out more on how we use cookies in our privacy policy.

 
Enter
Support The New Mithraeum The New Mithraeum is an independent, non-profit project dedicated to Mithraic studies, ancient religions and classical culture. Developed and maintained independently since 2007, the site exists without advertising, paywalls or institutional funding. If you have found value in its articles, interviews, photographs or database, please consider supporting the project with a contribution. Every contribution helps keep The New Mithraeum open, free and alive. Thank you.
Support us →
Monumentum

Four-sided limestone altar from Trier

Limestone altar from the Trier baths, carved on four sides with a lion and serpent, flanked by Sol and Luna, and likely linked to a Mithraic context involving Hekate.
Altar from Trier.

Altar from Trier.
Vor 1988

 
The New Mithraeum
21 Dec 2024
Updated on Apr 2026

TNMM 1364 ↔ CIMRM 992

Altar in limestone from the Jura (H. 0.315 Br. 0.16 D. 0.19), found "bei Verbreiterung der Moselbahn unweit der Uberflihrung des Weberbaches" near the Therms (1879). Treves, Provo Mus.

The front of the altar, worked on four sides, shows a lion, sitting to the right under a tree, into which a serpent is winding its way. Above its head a vase, without handles, and an arrow.

On the reverse, two cypresses side by side.

R. side: the dressed bust of Sol in aureole and radiate crown emerges from leaves.

L. side: Luna in aureole and crescent emerges from leaves.

The moment is very probably Mithraic. On the same spot a dedication to Hekate was discovered, and we know from various similar finds that this goddess was worshipped in the Mithraea.

References

Hettner, Steind., No. 143; MMM II 434 No. 321 and figs. 378-381; Esp. Rec. Gaule, VI, 220 No. 4924 and fig.; Loeschcke in Tr. H., 314ff and fig. 6.

Back to Top