Tauroctony slab from Golubić

TNMM 1829 ↔ CIMRM 1913

Two blocks in white limestone. They were walled in in the house of Mohammed Haraslia at Golubić near Bihać. Now at Sarajevo, Archaeological Museum. Inv. Nos. 213 (252) and 214 (253).

Glasnik Zem. Mus. BH 1897, 654f; Patsch in WMBH VI, 1899, 210f and figs. 37–38; CIL III S. 13276 a, b = 10042; Grabičević in Glasnik Sarajevu (N.S.) VII, 1953, 141ff No. 1 and figs; Šašel, Inschr. Jug., No. 86. See fig. 499.

a) Inv. No. 213 (H. 0.31 Br. 0.30 D. 0.316). Leoni / monogram.

b) Inv. No. 214 (H. 0.28 Br. 0.32 D. 0.30). Fonti / monogram.

Patsch is of the opinion that the two pieces are dice; but it is very strange that the strict Mithraists should have written their dedications to the fons perennis and to the Leo on a pair of dice.

Underneath these dedications there is an enigmatic monogram on both monuments. These inscriptions are written in ligatures and are read by Grabičević: pater i(nvicti) o(mnipotentis) r(egis) s(acerdos) or as pater s(acrorum) i(nvicti) o(mnipotentis) r(egis).

It seems to me acceptable that a pater dedicated a monument to the fons perennis and to a Leo if this lion is not conceived as a mystic grade, but as a lion which sometimes serves as a decoration of a fountain = fons.