Mithräum von Ober-Florstadt

TNMM 88 ↔ CIMRM 1074

A Mithraeum found at a distance of about 85 metres from the north corner of the Castellum at Ober Florstadt in 1887-1888.

The Mithraeum is situated on the slope of a hill which is called “die Warte”.

The building is an irregular rectangle (L. 13.40–13.90; Br. 6.73–6.40) and has brick walls (D. 0.62–0.65). One enters the cult room proper by means of four steps in sandstone (H. 0.15; Br. 1.33; D. 0.30), but during the first excavations two or three other steps had already been found, so that it is not impossible that the whole flight of stairs had seven steps.

The cult room has a central aisle which at its entrance is narrow (Br. 1.92–2.16; y. 2.85) but widens gradually (Br. 3.32) towards the altar podium. The pavement is covered with a layer of slate stone. On either side of the aisle are the benches (H. 0.25). On the right bench, at regular distances, small bases (a, b, c, d) are walled in; it seems that this was also the case in the left bench, but here only one base (a) remained. These bases possibly served either as stands for certain objects or as supports for the roof by means of wooden beams.

On either side of the altar elevation, and next to the side podia, is a small corridor (L. 0.61; Br. 0.42), which ends near m and n in a semicircular slab on which statues of the torchbearers must have been standing. The cult relief, now lost, rested upon the elevation.

The walls of the podium were plastered with a red layer; the outer walls were painted yellow and divided into squares indicated by red spots. The white ceiling was bordered by red and black lines. On this white there were squares in which circles were painted in yellow-green, reddish-brown, and grey colours. Each square has four circles and is partly surrounded by a wreath of leaves.

At a distance of 4–5 metres it was possible to delimit the walls of a room, which may have been built in connection with the Mithraeum. A Roman road goes in the direction of the entrance and is on a somewhat higher level.