Painted Parthian inscription on a ceramic sherd possibly referring to Mithras as a bull-slayer.
Parthian dipinto from Dura-Europos.CIMRM
The New Mithraeum
25 May 2026
A heavy reddish sherd (H. 0.075 Br. 0.075 D. 0.03) found in room H 2 of M 7 (O. Yale Inv. 42).R. N. Frye, Inscriptions from Dura Europos in Yale Classical Studies XIV, 1955, 199.MTRY GW-MTTNThis Parthian black dipinto seems to mean “of Mithra the bull- ?” The editor writes: ’I thought of ’bull-slayer’, but unfamiliarity with Palmyrene and North Semitic epigraphy prevents further conjecture’. Below the dipinto, at an interval of 0.03, is the following symbol: Fig. 243
This enigmatic fresco on top of the main tauroctony shows Mithras killing the bull, accompanied by Cautes and Cautopates, surrounded by burning altars and cypress trees.
This inscription by a certain Ioulianos, found at the entrance to the Dolichenum at Dura Europos, bears an inscription to Zeus Helios Mithras et Tourmasgade.
Painted inscription naming the patres and other initiates of the Mithraeum, above the podium in the south-west corner of the Mithraeum of Dura-Europos, Syria.
Greek ritual graffito scratched on wall plaster in the Mithraeum of Dura-Europos, mentioning the “fiery exhalation” and the “sacred nitre” of the Magi.