Black jasper tauroctony from the Seyrig collection

TNMM 2580 ↔ CIMRM 2365

Black jasper. Horizontal oval (0.033 × 0.025 × 0.006). Coll. Seyrig, 2.

Bonner, 264f No. 69 and Pl. IV, 69. See fig. 659.

O b v.: "Mithra, radiate, slaying bull, which runs to r. The god grasps the bull’s muzzle with his l.h. and he drives a knife into the animal’s neck with his r.h. Mithras’ body below shoulders, and rear of bull, lost with the left half of the stone. Dog attacks throat of bull; tail of scorpion under belly, rest of the creature lost. Snake at bottom. At r., small male figure in Phrygian costume holding torch(?) across body in reversed position(?). Over the bull’s muzzle, γγ, possibly the last two letters of φργν, the first two having been placed in the lost position at l. of Mithras’ head. Phre, "the sun" is sometimes written on amulets with parasitic nu.

R e v.: αβλαναθ[αναλβα]."