Painted scenes from the Mithras legend at Dura Europos

TNMM 823 ↔ CIMRM 42

Around the relief a number of scenes from the Mithras-Iegend have been painted (see fig. 12, 6). The main colours are black, yellow and grey.

The thirteen pictures, each one of them in a trapezoidal frame, are divided from the larger bas-relief by a stylized painted garland. The key of the arch was formed by a central picture which divided the series of pictures into two halves, containing six pictures each.

1) The key stone is adorned by the upper part of the body of a beardless god, whose head is surrounded by the nimbus and veiled; in his l.h. he holds the harpè (Saturnus).

Down to the left:

2) Standing bearded Jupiter with a nimbus round his head throws his thunderbolt at

3) Two anguipede giants. One of them is falling down already, while the other is about to throw a boulder.

4) Against a mountain a reclining figure, wrapped in a long mantle, his head covered with a hanging veil. In his right hand he holds the harpe (Saturnus). Above the god a palm-branch. The mountain, consisting of cloudlike little hills, is overgrown.

5) Mithras with the Phrygian cap on his head emerges from a flaming rock, with upraised hands, carrying a torch.

6/7) Lost.

On the right hand side:

8) Standing Mithras in Eastern attire, shoots an arrow from his Parthian bow at a rock or a cloud (water-miracle).

9) Mithras rides on the back of the bull running to the right. With his r.h. he is making the usual gesture against the evil eye, in his left he is holding a red sphere.

10) Mithras in Persian-Palmyrene attire is transporting the bull on his back into a cave.

11) Mithras is standing in front view. Before him kneels Sol, who is completely nude. Mithras has taken off the Phrygian cap of Sol, which he holds in his Lh., and lays his l.h. on the head of Sol. Above Sol is a sun-disc.

12) Cautes and Cautopates transporting on a big pole the dead body of the bull.

13) Banquet scene. Mithras in his cap to the right, Sol in radiate crown to the left, seated or reclining behind the corpse of the bull. Each holds a rhyton. At the left is represented a raven with human body and a raven’s head. His beak is open; in his Lh. he holds a long spit with pieces of meat which he offers to the banqueters (fig. 21).