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Monumentum

Sol and Mithras fresco of Dura Europos

Sol watches Mithras as he gazes Mithras gazes up to heaven while sharing the sacred meal.
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The New Mithraeum
16 May 2010
Updated on Sep 2023

TNMM 203 ↔ CIMRM 49

On the south bench, fallen from the back wall, was found a fragmentary scene of Mithras with the Sun, painted in a large scale.

Mithras, on the right side reclining to the left, has wide eyes, curly hair, a Phrygian cap. He wears a Persian dress, a long sleeved tunic with embroidered 'manchettes', a leather (?) collar divided in squares, each square being adorned with a precious stone, an embroidered front stripe going down the tunic, and a leather belt divided like the collar in squares, with a precious stone set into the centre of each. From the shoulders hangs a cloak, fastened over the breast with a circular brooch. The right arm and hand of Mithras are behind the waist of Sol as if he were embracing him in a friendly gesture. In his left hand he holds a rhyton.

Sol is dressed in exactly the same manner as Mithras. His head is bare, encircled by a nimbus and turned right and up. His wide open eyes are gazing up in the direction of heaven.

Report, 103

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