Tauroctony on display at the Getty Museum

TNMM 538

Preserved is a fragmentary sculpture of Mithras Tauroctonos or ’Bull-Slaying’. Mithras’s body below the waist (right leg missing) and the head-less body of the powerfully sculpted bull (part of left front leg missing and portion of back right leg) remain. Mithras wears the typical Persian cloak and baggy trousers. Near his right leg lies the scabbard for a short Roman sword. A fragment of the sword is visible between Mithras’s right knee and the bull’s neck. Traces of red color are still visible near the wound. Three animals often associated with Mithraic representations of the tauroctony are represented; part of the snake near the back leg of the bull, a scorpion crawling up its belly, and a the torso of a dog near the bull’s front legs.

Belonged to Jiří K. Frel from 1923 to 2006. Donated to the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1976.