Mithräum von Dormagen

TNMM 91

Workman digging in a field near Dormagen (Durnomagus) found a vault in which there was a chamber ten feet high, ten feet board and forty week long. Peter Delhoven, a prominent collector of Roman artifacts, particpated in the excavation of the mithräum. The interior walls still had evident traces of green and red paint on the walls.

Against one of the walls were found two monuments. The first monument was 2 1/2 feet [76 cm] high and two feet [61 cm] wide. It was made of limestone. Mithras and the bull depicted on the relief were damaged. The heads, arms and legs were damaged, but the loose garment of Mithras was of excellent workmanship. The tail of the bull terminated in three heads of wheat. Both the scorpion and snake were present with the latter coiling around a jar. There are other figures which appear on the tauroctony including a dog leaping up at the bull's wounds, there are also faces of Sol and Luna.

At the base is an inscription, D(eo) S(oli) i(nvicto) imp(erio) C Amandinius Verus buc(inator) v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) l(aetus) m(erito).

The second monument is also of the bull-slaying by Mithras. It is of white limestone, and is 2 feet [61 cm] high and 1 3/4 feet [53 cm] wide. The body of the bull is not complete with its head and much of its body and rear quarter missing. The bull's tail ends in three heads of wheat. Mithras' head, arms and legs are missing. The scorpion is in its usual place. There is also a crater and the snake. Cautopates is depicted cross-legged and holding his torch down. Cautes is also depicted with his legs crossed and his torch pointing up.

There is an inscription: Deo Soli i(nvicto) M(ithrae) p(ro) s(alute) i(mperatoris) Suran l(ibertus) dupl(icarius) ale Noricorum ci(vis) Trax v(otum) s(olvit) l(ibens) m(erito).

There were also found in the mithraeum fragments of another monument, eight terracotta and one bronze lamp, and twelve round balls of tuffa stone. All of the finds are located in the Rheinisches Landesmuseum in Bonn.

The monuments of the bull slaying have placed an important part in the emergence of modern theories that Mithraism is a religion based on astrology and that the scene depicted on the tauroctony is actually a star map. Karl B. Stark first advanced this theory in 1869, and David Ulansey argues that the bull-slaying scene is based on the precession of the equinoxes through the zodiac.

—John Brant

Dormagen is famous for the discovery of a mithraeum, found in a garden by the local sexton and chronicler Johann Peter Delhoven in the winter of 1820/21. Knowledge of the exact location of the find has since been lost, but a recent article suggests, with good reason, that it was located 'in a garden between Hauptstraße, today's Krefelder Straße, a little north of Florastraße'.

Two limestone Mithras dedications were found in this underground cult room, which, according to a new dating, date from before 161.

One of the stones shows Mithras killing a bull; the inscription reads C(aius) Amandinius Verus Buc(inator). The Roman citizen Caius Amandinius Verus was therefore a horn player or trumpeter from a region not mentioned in the inscription, but undoubtedly, given the circumstances of the find, in Noricorum.

The second monument, which has only survived in fragmentary form, also depicts the slaughter of a bull by Mithras and was consecrated by a Dup[l(icarius)] Al(a)e Noricorum, a wanderer of Thracian origin. The spelling of his name is disputed. The duplicarius received twice the pay of a common horseman.

Comments

The New Mithraeum

Thank you, Pattie. I’ll take a look at those balls and find the right place for them 😉

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Pattie L

Tauroctony and inscription: CIMRM 1012-13
12 stone balls and bronze lamp: CIMRM 1016

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