Aion altar of Bordeaux

TNMM 138

This limestone altar was unearthed i the ruins of a Mithraeum that came to light in 1986 during an excavation in Bordeaux, in the location of the former Parunis stores built in the 1950s on the ours Victor-Hugo. During the High Roman Empire the site was included in a city block situated within the southern extension of the city of Burdigala, on the main cardo.

The altar was found with three other uninscribed altars in the apse at the far end of the spelaeum. The main face is in the form of a temple, simply represented by two pilasters and a pediment. The sides feature a ewer and patera for libations, while a hearth and a bolster (pulvinus) appear at the top. A wooden platform, several traces of which survive midway down the left bench, could have supported this altar.

A lion-headed figure, an anthropomorphic creature with the head and legs of a lion, occupies the central niche. It is standing, but slightly swaying, and dressed in a loincloth, with not one, but two, bearded and crested serpents wrapped around its legs, each in one and a half coils. The lion-like head, its large maw open, reveals menacing canines in a realistic manner. This figure holds a key with a smooth bit in its left hand. In the other hand, it holds an object that is today lost, perhaps a metal knife, as is suggested by a hole and traces of oxidation. There may have been painted wings shown in the background at the base of the niche: the stone's surface indicates the existence of a painted coating, even one of stucco.

If the Mithraic leontocephaline was linked to the zodiac, as is probable, the serpents' coils might then indicate the course of the sun from one solstice to the other, with the wings corresponding to the seasons and the open maw of the wild beast symbolising a ravenous time, which would assimilate the figure to a Chronos, Saturn. It would thus be the iconographic expression of the existence of a cosmocrator linked to solar speculations, to the limes, to the cycle of the seas ons and to the power of the heavens.