Altar by Hector Corneliorum of Mérida

TNMM 586

It is fragmented and only two parts have been preserved, which have never been published together. However, in the CER.ES Catalogue there is a restitution with both pieces in a single photograph by Ana Osorio Calvo, which is included here. Thanks to this photograph, we can confirm that they are two pieces from a single altar, as the lower part of the letters of the first line appear on the lower fragment. The smaller fragment (Fig. 1.01.04.01b) corresponds to the upper left part of the altar, where the cornice and a large rectangular focus are preserved. It was first published in the thesis of García Iglesias (1973, no. 27, p. 98); a year earlier, in 1972, it had entered -with no indication of provenance- in the MNARM, inv.no. 13843. The text does not present any reading problems:

Invict[o...
To the Invict[o]...

Given the remarkable Mithraic testimonies from Mérida and the importance of the Cerro de S. Albín complex, it was assumed that this altar fragment came from that place and that it would correspond to a similar chronology to the rest of the deposit, i.e. the second half of the 2nd century AD. It would therefore be an altar destined to the cult of Mithras, to which the monument is dedicated with a common expression, of the type Invicto Deo or Invicto Mithrae.

Despite presenting them in his catalogue with correlative numbers, neither the perspicacious García Iglesias, nor any of us who have studied the materials from Emerita since then, realised that this fragment belonged to the same altar as another inscribed monument known from long ago, apparently found in the Alcazaba of Mérida and, therefore, far from the Cerro de San Albín, Calle Espronceda or Calle Constantino; the three places where remains of the cult of Mithras had been found until now. The lower part of the letters of the last fragment found was visible in the inscription of the old fragment, so that the reading has not been altered.

This second fragment is also preserved in the MNARM, inv. no. 13902. Date: second half of the 2nd century AD.

... Invict[o Mithrae] / Hector Cornelior[um] / ex visu

To the Invict [Mithrae], Hector of the Cornelians, by a vision