Mithraism & The Eye of Mithra (1400 BC)

**************************

Click Here to View the Main Index

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

**************************

Mithraic Iconography and Ideology..... Leroy A. Campbell....Publisher, E. J. Brill, 1969.
"the most important of the ancient Indo-Iranian Deities in many ways is Mithra, who represents the Sun. In the Veda He is very intimately associated with Asura Varuna. In the Avesta, however, He is associated more with the two Guardian-Judges of departed souls than with Ahuramazda. He awaits the Souls on the other side of death and sits in Judgment over them by the side of Sraosha and Rashnu. He dwells on the top of the Hara-Bareza (Alborz) Mountain. In the Avesta He is the Great Being who is the Wise Ruler, the Loving Guardian and the Impartial Judge of humanity, a conception which is essentially ethical. In the Veda too His position is similar. In later days the cult of Mithra attained great importance esoteric school of occultism, which in its turn profoundly influenced the later Roman thought as well as earlier Christianity.

Alabaster "Eye Idols," Eye Temple (Tell Brak), 3,200 BC.....Tell Brak is one of the world’s earliest cities, which reached urban scale and complexity by the early 4th millennium BC and retained political importance and economic power through most of the 3rd millennium BC... "eye idols" like those at Tell Brak.... they are present at Susa as well."

"The Mithraic tradition thrived in Asia Minor and at it's center at Trebizond the Greeks identified him with Helios. It was here that Mithra acquired the pointed cap. See the Greek artists of the school of Perganum." (Hawkes: 1962..pg 182)...Mithras entered the Roman world in the 1st century BC. The great sun temple to Jupiter-Baal as the Sun, at Baaleck (Heliopolis), built during the 2nd century AD..."Plato idealized Sun worship and called the Sun the offspring of the first god." (Hawkes: 1962..pg 198)...

Before Islamization of the region, the inhabitants of Khorasan had mostly practiced Zoroastrianism but at different stages there were also various adherents of Manichaeism, Sun worshippers (Mithraism), Nestorianism, Paganism, Shamanism, Buddhism and a small number of Jews too...

"Mithra is young. His eye is the sun. The rays of the sun are his arms. He wears glistening garments. His abode is golden. He is a king and a universal monarch. Mithra is ever waking and watches in darkness." (Gershevitch: 1959 pg 4, 31)...

"if the god Mithras of the Roman religion was actually the Iranian god Mithra, we should expect to find in Iranian mythology a story in which Mithra kills a bull. However, the fact is that no such Iranian myth exists: in no known Iranian text does Mithra have anything to do with killing a bull.

."After the reign of Alexander the Great, Mithra came to be worshipped in all the Oriental Kingdoms. By the 2nd Century AD it had spread throughout the Greek and Roman empires. (Canney: pg 244)

INDO-IRANIANS...."Until the year 1400 BC, the Iranians and Hindus were still united and had several gods with similar names. One of these was Mithra." (Canney: pg 244)

Tibetan terms:
khra hrig: wide open eyes...
chu bur mig: physical eyes...
che re bltas: looking directly...
lta stang: gaze...
spyan: eyes...
mig khra hrig ge: piercing eyes...
zur mig blta: flirtatious eyes...
gzi: onyx stone with eyes...
lha yi mig: divine eye...

"When we see with our eyes in the state of contemplation what we are really seeing is our own wisdom." (Wangyal: 1993..pg 89)...

"Listen while you keep motionless command of your organs of sense. Even the eyelids may not be moved." (Francke: 1950..pg 181)...

"In Shinto, the ancestors watch their descendants with their spirit eyes."..(Jinja:1958..pg 24)...

"Mithra.....Images of Lord Sun Mihir in India are shown wearing a central Asian dress, complete with boots. The same image of Mithra is depicted in the huge mural paintings in Bamiyan’s Mahāyāna Buddhism site (300-400 AD). Interestingly Bamiyan’s Mithra has strong Hellenistic tint. For example Mithra is accompanied by the twin gods Cautes and Cautopates as Roman Mithras." (Maeda. The Golden City Bamiyan Revived by Hi-vision Digital; Odani. “The Colossal Buddha and Maitreya Cult in Bamiyan”)

For over three hundred years the rulers of the Roman Empire worshipped the god Mithras. Known throughout Europe and Asia by the names Mithra, Mitra, Meitros, Mihr, Mehr, and Meher, the veneration of this god began around 2800 years ago in Persia, where it was soon moved west and became imbedded with Babylonian doctrines. There is mention of Mithra or Mitra (et al) before 2800, but only as a minor diety and without much information. It appears to be after 2800 when Mithra is transformed and starts to play a major role among the gods.

The Persians introduced initiates to the mysteries in natural caves, according to Porphyry, the third century neoplatonic philosopher. These cave temples were created in the image of the World Cave that Mithras had created, according to the Persian creation myth. Ceremonies took place in complete darkness and involved the Mithraic Eye.

"At the pleasant bank of the Candrabhaga, a city named for Sambha is situated...There lies the abode of the Sun God (Arka) who is standing there in the form of Mitra with the Mitra eye." (Humbach: 1978..pg 236)....

gYUNG-DRUNG BKOD-GLING...."Country in which the swastika is regulated. The Iranian swastika represented the sun and in contrast to the Indian swastika, extends its arms counter-clockwise. This is evidently the region of Mithras, the Persian God of Light, whose cult later penetrated into Tibet as the Bon religion." (Kuznetsov: 1970..pg 571)

Mithras was born of Anahita, an immaculate virgin mother once worshipped as a fertility goddess before the hierarchical reformation. Anahita was said to have conceived the Saviour from the seed of Zarathustra preserved in the waters of Lake Hamun in the Persian province of Sistan. Mithra's ascension to heaven was said to have occurred in 208 B.C.E., 64 years after his birth. Parthian coins and documents bear a double date with this 64 year interval.

"Samba left the royal residence of Dvaravati on the edge of the salt sea and journeyed to the Candrabhaga River in the Panjab to the sacred bathing place of Mitravana, named for Mitra, one of the twelve Adityas. Until this time the Sun God had been worshipped by means of holy circles (mandala). Samba invited eighteen families of the Magas of Sakadvipa to Mitravana where he established for them the city of Sambapura. (The site of Sambapura is the present day Multan...Mulasthana: basic place, base)...(Acta: 1978...pg 239)...

Mitra and Varuna are throned in heaven ; the other gods, so far as they are not identified with individual objects, wander through the world at will. "We hear nothing of temples of the gods, and it is almost certain that the hymns recognize no idols ; the gods were them- selves present in the different phenomena of the world.....http://www17.us.archive.org/stream/cosmologyigveda00wallgoog/cosmologyigveda00wallgoog_djvu.txt

It was from Bactria that came prophet Zarathustra (Zardasht). Another source of spiritual home that made Bactria sacred was a great temple of the ancient goddess Anahid, or Anailtis- Tanata in Persian and Ananita in the Avesta hymns. The temple was so rich that often it attracted the needy Syrian kings who sat out to plunder it. In her name and honor, in Armemia, girls prostituted themselves. Anaitis was a Scythian goddess, but she is identified also as Assyrian Mylitta, the Arabian Alytta and the Greek Venus Urania. Artaxerxes Mnemon of the Sassanids was among her devotees. She is also associated with the Persian Mithra. Her association with Zoroaster adds to her popularity.

The Aryans and the Iranians of Bactria, had a lot in common. They spoke the same language, worshiped the forces of nature, such as: Varuna, the shining Vault of Heaven; Mithra, the friendly light of the sun; Vayu; the wind that pushes aside the storms and clears the heaven; Yama, the primeval man, reigning over the blessed souls in paradise. The powers of nature, to them, were the signs of something far more deeply interfused. In their ceremonies they also drunk the sacred Juice, Soma.These two races slowly drifted apart as time went on, for not known reasons.

Just to the west of Zhang-zhung there once existed the vast Kushana empire ....... an area in which Indian Buddhism and the Bon teachings interacted with various strands of the great Iranian and Central Asian religions-- Zoroastrian, Zurvanist, Mithraist, Manichean, as well as Indian Shaivism and Nestorian Christianity.......

PAMIRS or Hindu Kush: Numerous city-states and fortresses with names beginning with 'Kala' ('Quallah'), all traces of which seem to have 'completely disappeared'...A extremely rich mixture of Shambhalians of all spiritual and cultural traditions....The entire region was considered a "Pagan Enclave" by the Arab mapmakers. Tremendous silk route influences. Crossroads between the Indian Tantric traditions moving northward and the Vedic Mithraic traditions of Persia. Tazik. Bon moved into Tibet via this region. Padmasambhava. Early teachings of Dzogchen in the Bon and Nyingma traditions appeared here in the 8th century AD.

earliest evidence for the Mithraic mysteries places their appearance in the middle of the first century B.C.: the historian Plutarch says that in 67 B.C. a large band of pirates based in Cilicia (a province on the southeastern coast of Asia Minor) were practicing "secret rites" of Mithras. The earliest physical remains of the cult date from around the end of the first century A.D., and Mithraism reached its height of popularity in the third century. In addition to soldiers, the cult's membership included significant numbers of bureaucrats and merchants. Women were excluded. Mithraism declined with the rise to power of Christianity, until the beginning of the fifth century, when Christianity became strong enough to exterminate by force rival religions such as Mithraism.

gYUNG-DRUNG BKOD-GLING...."Country in which the swastika is regulated. The Iranian swastika represented the sun and in contrast to the Indian swastika, extends its arms counter-clockwise. This is evidently the region of Mithras, the Persian God of Light, whose cult later penetrated into Tibet as the Bon religion." (Kuznetsov: 1970..pg 571)

Another source of spiritual home that made Bactria sacred was a great temple of the ancient Iranian goddess, Anahit (in Pahlavi or Middle-Persian) and Anahita (Ânâhitâ) in the Avesta hymns. The temple was so rich that often it attracted the needy Syrian kings who sat out to plunder it. Anaitis was a Scythian goddess, but she is identified also as Assyrian Mylitta, the Arabian Alytta and the Greek Venus Urania. Artaxerxes Mnemon, one of the emperors of Achaemenid dynasty was among her devotees. She is also associated with the Persian Mithra.

Before Islamization of the region, the inhabitants had mostly practiced Zoroastrianism but at different stages there were also various adherents of Manichaeism, Sun worshippers (Mithraism), Nestorianism, Paganism, Shamanism, Buddhism and a small number of Jews too.

Belief in the great power of Mithra was called in question by Zarathushtra or Zoroaster, the great prophet who worked mainly in Eastern Iran and who lived some time between 1000 and 600 B.C. (The exact date is very widely disputed, but in the present state of our knowledge the latter date is the more probable.) It is a major drawback that his character has largely to be reconstructed from the Gathas, devotional hymns attributed to the prophet and written in an archaic and abstruse Eastern Iranian dialect which is extremely difficult to translate. It is, however, an established fact that Zarathushtra was a great reformer, who attempted to transform the established polytheism into a monotheist pattern with Ahuramazda as the sole and supreme god, and so found himself obliged to relegate Mithra to the background. He also attacked the forms of worship of his time, forbidding blood sacrifice such as the bull-offering and denying to his followers the ecstatic enjoyment of the spirituous Haoma. This measure in particular dealt a heavy blow to the Mithra cult, for Mithra was (as we shall see) closely associated with the bull, whose blood, mixed with the Haoma, bestowed immortality.

Mithras in Europe The circumstances which brought the god at last to Europe after hundreds of years are indeed strange. According to the historian Plutarch, who lived in the first century A.D., the Romans became acquainted with Mithras through pirates from Cilicia, a province of Asia Minor. These were the pirates who constituted such a threat to Rome until Pompey drove them from the seas....Plutarch writes of the pirates: 'They brought to Olympus in Lycia strange offerings and performed some secret mysteries, which still in the cult of Mithras, first made known by them [the pirates]'. In the middle of the second century A.D. the historian Appian adds that the pirates came to know of the mysteries from the troops who were left behind by the defeated army of Mithridates Eupator. It is well established that all kinds of Eastern races were represented in that army....There are some well-known monuments associated with Mithras in the pirates' homeland in the mountainous religions of Cilicia, and recently an altar was discovered in Anazarbos which had been consecrated by Marcus Aurelius as 'Priest and Father of Zeus-Helios-Mithras'. The god was also worshipped in Tarsus, the capital of the province, as we know from coins of the Emperor Gordian III which bear a picture of the bull-slayer.

"The sun in the Rigveda is known as the eye of Mithra. The sovereign sky has an eye in the long solar ray that penetrates the world cave."..(Campbell: 1968..pg 99)..

"According to Kuznetsov, Bon was introduced to Tibet in the fifth century BC, when there occurred a mass migration of Iranians from Sogdhiana in north-east Iran to the northern parts of Tibet. They brought with them an ancient form of polytheistic Mithraism and the Araimic alphabet, named after Aramaiti, the Iranian Earth Goddess." .....June Campbell: "Traveller in Space"...

"Mitra supports earth and sky. Mitra regardeth men with the unwinking eye." (Keith: 1967..pg 226)... "His rays bear up the one who knoweth all, the sun for all to see, the eye of Mitra." (Keith: 1967..pg 63)....

"The relationship between daena (the medium of sight) and xratu (a mental sphere). Possession of daena/vision is manifested with the action of an eye enhanced with the energy of xratu, displaying the features of 'rising'. Vision derives from the possession of the 'asna xratu', which is itself the faculty of vision of 'Jan', whence the eye is ordered." (Piras: 1996...pg 14)...

"The Sun as the All Seeing Eye" Hawkes: 1962..pg 87...

Tel Brak Temple in Syria...staring divine eyes.....Eye Goddesses ......"Radiant divine eye, compound eye and sun symbol"(Gimbutas: 1989 pg 54-56)...

"Underground Mithraic temple .....The typical mithraeum was a small rectangular subterranean chamber, on the order of 75 feet by 30 feet with a vaulted ceiling. An aisle usually ran lengthwise down the center of the temple, with a stone bench on either side two or three feet high on which the cult's members would recline during their meetings. On average a mithraeum could hold perhaps twenty to thirty people at a time. At the back of the mithraeum at the end of the aisle was always found a representation-- usually a carved relief but sometimes a statue or painting-- of the central icon of Mithraism: the so-called tauroctony or "bull-slaying scene" in which the god of the cult, Mithras, accompanied by a dog, a snake, a raven, and a scorpion, is shown in the act of killing a bull. Other parts of the temple were decorated with various scenes and figures. There were many hundreds-- perhaps thousands-- of Mithraic temples in the Roman empire. The greatest concentrations have been found in the city of Rome itself, and in those places in the empire (often in the most distant frontiers) where Roman soldiers-- who made up a major segment of the cult's membership-- were stationed.

Trungpa Rinpoche incorporated elements from numerous traditions into the Shambhala Path that he thought would be beneficial to practitioners. Similar elements in the Bön religion, Shenlha Okar, Nine Brothers Who Created Existence, Werma, Dralha and Lhasang are of interest. From Confucianism comes a framework of heaven, earth, and man for understanding the proper relationship between different elements of compositions of all kinds. From Taoism comes the use of feng shui and other incorporations. From the Shinto tradition comes the Sun Goddess and the Sacred Mirror, the Kami shrine at RMSC. From the Manichaeans, the vegetarian diet is of interest...Trungpa talked about Mithra. Was curious about Native American wisdom. Jack Niland, an early student of Chögyam Trungpa, relates the tale of Chögyam Trungpa and the I Ching - that he “used the I Ching for everything...there are hexagrams everywhere if you can see them.”

As Chögyam Trungpa says in Great Eastern Sun, The Wisdom of Shambhala, p 133: "Shambhala vision applies to people of any faith, not just people who believe in Buddhism… the Shambhala vision does not distinguish a Buddhist from a Catholic, a Protestant, a Jew, a Moslem, a Hindu. That’s why we call it the Shambhala kingdom. A kingdom should have lots of spiritual disciplines in it. That’s why we are here."

According to B.A. Litvinsky, the names of the Hephtalite rulers used in the Shahnameh are Iranian. According to Xavier Tremblay, one of the Hephthalite rulers was named "Khingila", which has the same root as the Sogdian word xnγr and the Wakhi word xiŋgār, meaning "sword". The name "Mihirakula" is thought to be derived from mithra-kula which is Iranian for "the Sun family", with kula having the same root as Pashto kul, "family". "Toramāna" is also considered to have an Iranian origin. Accordingly, in Sanskrit, mihira-kula would mean the "kul (family) of mihira (Sun)", although mihira is not purely Sanskrit but is a borrowing from Middle Iranian mihr. Janos Harmatta gives the translation "Mithra's Begotten" and also supports the Iranian theory.

The westward movement of the western group of Aryans can be observed to have reached the Semitic lands by the 18th century B.C.E. It is postulated that they migrated westward in the role of mercenaries, as the term Marianni - an Aryan word meaning warriors - can be observed in Egyptian and Hittite texts classifying them as a ruling military class; and documents from the 16th century B.C.E. in Mesapotamia and Syria disclose Iranian names. Morever, the dynasty of the Mitanni kingdom, situated in northern Mesapotamia, can be proved to have Aryan origins by the names of its kings (Artatama, Shutarna, Artasumara, Dushratta) and in a treaty betwixt the Mitanni and Hittites dating to the 15th century B.C.E. the gods Mitra and Varuna, Indra and the Nasatyas are invoked by the former. For the study of Mithraism, this data is vital, as it is one of the earliest recordings concerning the god Mithra, and it clearly indicates his Aryan origin: Mitra (later to be transformed into Mithra) being the Sanskrit counterpart of the Old Persian Mihr (meaning: friend or contract) both derived from the Iranian (Aryan) root Mei meaning "exchange."

In Mithraic Studies it stated that Mithras was born as an adult from solid rock, "wearing his Phrygian cap, issues forth from the rocky mass. As yet only his bare torso is visible. In each hand he raises aloft a lighted torch and, as an unusual detail, red flames shoot out all around him from the petra genetrix." David Ulansey speculates that this was a belief derived from the Perseus' myths which held he was born from an underground cavern.

"There is reference to Mithra as being born of "Anahita, the Immaculate Virgin Mother of the Lord Mithras". Anahita was said to have conceived the Mithras from the seed of Zarathustra preserved in the waters of Lake Hamun in the Persian province of Sistan. In other, contradictory traditions, he is also born without any sex but from the rock wall of a cave. One must know that there were separate Mithra traditions that may have changed and been adapted over time. This information comes from a Temple that bears this inscription dedicated to Anahita and dated to about 200 B.C.E.......http://archi-west.tripod.com/anahita.htm

Mithraism....."Before the time of Constantine the ancient world was a virtual cornucopia of different religions and cults that existed all over the Roman Empire and eastward into China and India. As a result of these competing doctrines "when Christianity was only one of several dozen foreign Eastern cults struggling for recognition in Rome, the religious dualism and dogmatic moral teaching of Mithraism set it apart from other sects, creating a stability previously unknown in Roman paganism" (Mithras in the Roman Empire). The striking parallels to Christianity in Mithraism have long been pointed out, for Mithras was said to have been: born of a virgin birth, had twelve followers or disciples, was killed and resurrected, performed miracles, and was known as mankind's savior who was called the light of the world and his virgin birth occurred on December 25. Indeed, the resemblances are so striking in that all of the Christian mysteries were known nearly five hundred years before the birth of Christ that later church fathers claimed that Satan had created all of this prior to Christ's birth so as to confuse the laity.".....http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/c/christ_constantine_sol_invictus.html

"....... Iranian influence upon Zen Buddhism.....Characteristic elements of Zen Buddhism, i. e. the founder of Zen, Kegon-kyō, the Vijnāna-vādin, Mādhyamaka philosophies, the Prajñāpāramitā literatures and Ten Bull Pictures are examined in the context introduced by to show their Persian connection....... http://www.kavehfarrokh.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/zen_buddhism_and_persian_culture_v1.pdf

"The Proto-Indo-Iranian word *mitra- (nominative *mitras) means "[that which] binds", deriving from the root mi- "to bind", with the "tool suffix" -tra- (cf. man-tra-). This particular meaning is preserved in the mithra "covenant" written in Avestan, the old Eastern Iranian liturgical language used to compose the sacred hymns and canon of the Zoroastrian sacred scripture of the Avesta. In Sanskrit, mitra literally means "friend", one of the aspects of binding and alliance. Following the prehistoric cultural split of Indian and Iranian cultures, names descended from *mitra were used for the various religious entities, as follows......Indic Mitra(in Sanskrit Mitrá-, Mitrá?). In the Vedic period (1500–500 BCE) Mitra was a prominent deity (asura) of the Rigveda, a collection of hymns to various Indian deities, who had a distinguished relationship with Varuna, chief of the gods. Vedic Mitra was the patron divinity of honesty, friendship, contracts and meetings. The first extant record of Indo-Aryan Mitra, in the form mi-it-ra-, is in the inscribed peace treaty of c. 1400 BCE between Hittites and the Hurrian kingdom of the Mitanni in the area southeast of Lake Van in Asia Minor. In the inscription Mitra appears together with four other Indo-Aryan divinities as witnesses and keepers of the pact.".....http://www.romanarmy.net/mithras.shtml

"Iranian Mithra (in Avestan Mira-, Miro). In Zoroastrianism, Mithra was a yazata mentioned in the Zoroastrian sacred scripture of the Avesta and a member of the trinity of ahuras, protectors of asha/arta ("truth" or "[that which is] right"). Mithra's standard appellation was "of wide pastures" suggesting omnipresence: Mithra is "truth-speaking, ...with a thousand ears,...with ten thousand eyes, high, with full knowledge, strong, sleepless, and ever awake." (Mihr Yasht (Hymn to Mithra) 10.7). As preserver of covenants, Mithra was also protector and keeper of all aspects of interpersonal relationships, such as friendship and love. Related to his position as protector of truth, Mithra was a judge (ratu), ensuring that individuals who broke promises or were not righteous (artavan) were not admitted to paradise. As in the Indo-Iranian tradition, Mithra was associated with (the divinity of) the sun but originally distinct from it. Mithra was closely associated with the feminine yazata Aredvi Sura Anahita, the hypostasis of knowledge.".....http://www.romanarmy.net/mithras.shtml

"Graeco-Roman Mithras.The name Mithras is the Greek nominative form of Mithra, the yazata that, as previously mentioned, served as mediator between Ahura Mazda and the earth, the guarantor of human contracts. In Mithraism, however, much was added to the original elements of Mitra/Mithra, although the Mithraist emphasis on astrology strongly suggests a synthesis of beliefs with the earlier star-oriented Mesopotamian or Anatolian religions. At first identified with the Sun-god Helios by the Greeks, the syncretic Mithra-Helios was transformed into the figure Mithras during the 2nd century BCE, probably at Pergamon....Pergamon (Ancient Greek: τὸ Πέργαμον or ἡ Πέργαμος), or Pergamum, was an ancient Greek city in Aeolis."....http://www.romanarmy.net/mithras.shtml

"Birth of a God. There are several competing stories regarding Mithras’ birth. Some say that he was born, or reborn, from a rock (the petra genetrix) or a tree typically with the snake Oroboros wrapped around it. A bronze image of Mithras emerging from an egg-shaped zodiac ring, the "Cosmic Egg", was found associated with a temple on Hadrian's Wall (now at the University of Newcastle), while other stories have him being born of a virgin. An inscription from Rome suggests that Mithras may have been seen as the Orphic creator-god Phanes who emerged from the world egg at the beginning of time, bringing the universe into existence. This view is reinforced by a bas-relief at the Estense Museum in Modena, Italy, which shows Phanes emerging from an egg, surrounded by the twelve signs of the zodiac, in an image very similar to that at Newcastle. All stories agree that Mithras was born on December 255 - a date celebrated as the Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, or the “Birthday of the Unconquered Sun”. Interestingly, some depictions of his birth show shepherds in attendance, while others show only two torchbearers, but regardless the stories all concur that it was Ahura Mazda who arranged for his creation.".....http://www.romanarmy.net/mithras.shtml

"Franz Cumont's Texts and Illustrated Monuments Relating to the Mysteries of Mithra was published in 1894-1900 (the English translation followed in 1903).....Worship took place in a temple known to modern scholars as a "mithraeum" (Latin, from Greek mithraion). A mithraeum was either an adapted natural cave or cavern, or an artificial building constructed to imitate a cavern, to thus resemble Mithras' birthplace. As alluded to above, it is commonly believed that the cave in Mithraism imagery represents the cosmos, and the rock is the cosmos seen from the outside. Wherever possible, purpose-built mithraea were constructed within rooms inside or below an existing building, e.g. a private home or a bathhouse. Mithraea were thus intended to be dark and windowless. A mithraeum may be identified by its separate entrance or vestibule, its "cave", called the spelaeum or spelunca, with raised benches along the side walls for the ritual meal, and its sanctuary at the far end, often in a recess, before which the pedestal-like altar stood. Mithraea following this basic plan are scattered over much of the Empire's former area, particularly where the legions were stationed along the frontiers. Along Hadrian's Wall, for example, three mithraea have been identified at Housesteads, Carrawburgh and Rudchester. Finds from these sites are in the University of Newcastle's Museum of Antiquities, where a mithraeum has been recreated. Excavations in London have uncovered the remains of a Mithraic temple near the centre of the once walled Roman settlement, on the bank of the Walbrook stream. Mithraea have also been found along the Danube and Rhine river frontier, in the province of Dacia (where in 2003 a temple was found in Alba-Iulia) and as far afield as Numidia in North Africa."....http://www.romanarmy.net/mithras.shtml

**************************

Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2012

**************************