Frescoes of 'Magis' from Dura Europos
TNMM 372 ↔ CIMRM 44
On the front of the arcosolium on either side a sitting figure (fig. 12, 8; fig. 22).
'Two persons in the usual Perso-Palmyrene dress seated majestically in two large and fine carved armchairs. Both wear the Mithraic tiara, both are bearded and wear a drooping, short, black moustache, both have the Iranian type of face. In the l.h. they hold a white roll and in the right a black cane with a flat top'.
The whole has been painted in a brownish yellow colour. Probably these Magi represent the patres of the Dura-community.
Franz Cumont imagined the one of the right to be a depiction of Zoroaster in his article The Dura Mithraeum, Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies, pp. 151-214, published posthumously in 1975.
References
Cumont in CRAI 1934, 100f; ILN 1934 fig. 8, 9; du Mesnil du Buisson in GBA 1935, fig. 13; Bidez-Cumont, Les Mages I, Pl. I, 1, 2; Rostovtzeff, D-E, fig. 10; Report, 1 10f and Pl. XVI, XVII.
- Vermaseren, Maarten Jozef (1956) Corpus Inscriptionum et Monumentorum Religionis Mithriacae
- AA. VV. (1975) Mithraic Studies: Proceedings of the First International Congress of Mithraic Studies.
