The Mystery of Mithras. Exploring the Heart of Roman cult/Mysterium Mithras: Annäherungen an einen römischen Kult"

April 10, 2022-April 30, 2023, Archeology Museum in Frankfurt

The National History Museum of Transylvania participates with a cultural asset in the international exhibition "The Mystery of Mithras. Exploring the Heart of Roman cult" organized at the Archeology Museum in Frankfurt during 10.04.2022-30.04.2023.

The project aims to create a traveling exhibition dedicated to one of the most fascinating cults of antiquity, the cult of the god Mithras. In a world that knew a multitude of gods, this cult from the East enjoyed a fulminating success that would last for more than three centuries from one end of the empire unified by Rome to the other, from the highlands of Scotland to the desert Sahara, from the beaches of the Atlantic to the banks of the Euphrates. Even if archaeological research does not cease to reveal year after year evidence of this revolutionary cult, Mithras continues to remain an enigma that has aroused curiosity since the Renaissance. His followers, gathered in discrete, secret communities, recalled the mythical history of the god by performing a series of rituals that remained for a long time mysterious.

The Cluj museum completes the image of the Mithraic cult in the provinces of the Roman Empire, exhibiting a remarkable piece, a relief representing the mythical scene of the killing of the bull by Mithras. The location of the relief is not known exactly, but only the fact that it comes from Transylvania, which locates it in the central-northern area of ​​Dacia province. Mithras Taurochtonous takes center stage: riding the bull, the god stabs it with a dagger. Cautes and Cautopates are represented on either side and above them, in the bust, the Moon and Sol.