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Monumentum

Terra sigillata bowl depicting the Mithraic cult meal from Trier

This terra sigillata was found in 1926 in a grave on the Roman cemetery of St. Matthias, Trier. An eyelet indicates that it could have been hung on a wall.
  • TS bowl C3806

    TS bowl C3806
    Rheinisches Landesmuseum 

  • TS bowl C3806

    TS bowl C3806
    Rheinisches Landesmuseum 

 
 
The New Mithraeum
28 Jul 2021
Updated on Jan 2022
 

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[A] representation of the first cult meal is found on a specially made terra sigillata bowl from Trier, which was found in a grave from the third century. What is interesting here is the depiction of an obvious symbolism in that the dadophores are shown twice, once in the flesh, so to speak, and once as a cock (= cautes) or nightingale (cautopates). Particularly striking, however, is the massive presence of a reclining lion in the midst of the action of the First Cult Feast, placed between this scene and the serpent crater, thus completing the lion-crater-serpent triad that is usually part of