Painted scenes from the Mithras legend at Dura Europos
Around the relief with Mithras as a bullkiller, a number of scenes from the Mithras Iegend have been painted in the Mithraeum of Dura Europos.
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The New Mithraeum
20 Dec 2024
Updated on May 2026
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. Rostovtzeff in RM 1934, 189ff; Cumont in CRAI 1934, 97ff; du Mesnil du Buisson in GBA 1935, 8ff and figs. 8-12; Report, 105ff and PI. XVIII, 1. 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…
This enigmatic fresco on top of the main tauroctony shows Mithras killing the bull, accompanied by Cautes and Cautopates, surrounded by burning altars and cypress trees.
This inscription by a certain Ioulianos, found at the entrance to the Dolichenum at Dura Europos, bears an inscription to Zeus Helios Mithras et Tourmasgade.
Painted inscription naming the patres and other initiates of the Mithraeum, above the podium in the south-west corner of the Mithraeum of Dura-Europos, Syria.
Greek ritual graffito scratched on wall plaster in the Mithraeum of Dura-Europos, mentioning the “fiery exhalation” and the “sacred nitre” of the Magi.