Feast scene with Mithras and Sol from Ladenburg

TNMM 291

This imposing bas-relief was unearthed in 1965 during a public project being carried out in Ladenburg, at Kastellweg 7, in the south part of the ancient city of Lopodunum in Germania Superior. Its material is a Keuper sandstone of superior quality, brought to the city from quarries located further up the Neckar.

The panel is decorated at the upper corners with two rosettes that have differently oriented petals. At the centre, inside a niche, Sol and Mithras banquet while semi-reclining on a couch beneath an arched vault. To the left, Sol, nude and wearing a diadem, his legs crossed, brandishes a rhyton with his raised right hand in front of a large solar disc. Leaning on his left arm, he originally held another attribute, probably the whip with which he drove his quadriga. To the right, Mithras, wearing a Phrygian cap and dressed in a simple mantle, places his right hand on the shoulder of his divine companion, while holding a rhyton in his left hand. The couch on which they are resting is covered by the hide of a bull oriented towards the right. In the foreground there is a small, circular table with three legs formed from the bull’s legs and hoofs. On this tripod are placed a bunch of grapes (recalling the contents of each rhyton) and two fruits or loaves of bread.

The archaeologist who made this discovery, Berndmark Heukemes, found traces of stucco and coloured paint on this relief, making it posible to propose a hypothetical reconstruction of the original polychromy, which has resulted in a colourised copy. The result has not failed to arouse reactions that are sometimes in sharp contrast with one another, between surprise and indignation.