Folia archeologica 48.
István Vörös: Az aquincumi castrum mithraeumának állatcsontleletei
80 ISTVÁN VÖRÖS This period is too long for the accumulation of such a „small" quantity of animal bones. Supposing that the sacrifices were performed once annually, it would be only 10 pieces of bones places into the sacrificial pit and around the altars on each occasion. This model would also imply that traces of the sacrifice were not cleaned away from around the altar during the 50 years of use. The animal remains of the Mithraeum at Künzig( 19546 pieces) was 22 times more than the Aquincum set 4 8. This huge assemblage can mark a more intensive operation ancl longer accummulation. Let us mention that the complete archaeological evidence from Klinzig is not published yet. We can probably conclude that the animalé remains in the Mithraic sanctuary found in the Aquincum legion camp were evidences of a ceremony held before walling the sanctuary off. On this occasion, 15 hen s (11 cocks, 4 capons) 7 pig s, 3 cattl e, 5 gees e, and 1-1 shee p and har e were (partly) placed into the sacrificialpit. In course of this ceremony, apart from fleshy bone regions of pig, hens and geese split heads of pig and whole heads of hen, part of sheep head, horn core of cattle and phalangi of sheep and cattle were put into the pit. The bones of hare represent uniformly the lumbar (pelvis) region accompanied by one vertebra from under the head (atlas) and the bone of a hind leg (mt.). Head and horn core can be considereclthe essential, primary parts, attributes of an animal. Parts of the body which served not for meals but for the representation of the „presence" of the animal. In the archaeozoological material from the Mithraeum at Künzig, similar to our case, the ratio of pig-sheep-cattle head region is high. At the same time, the occurrence of hen heads is low (below 0,1 %) . I he sheep and cattle phalangi found at the Mithraeum at Aquincum could not be identified as the terminal bones of stribbed hide because the metapodia were missing. We have, naturally, no data on the consumption or sacrificial offering of offals in archaeozoological evidence. An interesting data to this problem can be the remains of a cca. 100 mm long goose trachea, which could belong to the lungs of the animal, as we had no evidence of jugular vertebrae or the suspension bones of the fore limbs. On the basis of the above data we can suppose that the head s of pig, sheep and cattle as well as hens were s'acrificial offerings while the pig shoulde r and ha m as well as hen and goose wing s and leg s were consumed as part of the offering ceremony. The lower canine tooth taken out from the mandible of a pig can be also considered an attribute of the animal. All of the pieces found in trie Aquincum Mithrauem used to belong to male individuals. They can be found in large number, not in the sanctuaries but other parts of the temple e.g., at Sarmizegetusa 5 0 , Roma Mithraeum S. Prisca 5 1 . In the Mithraeum I. at Nida, pierced boar tooth (tusk?) was found 5 2 . The three animals, pi gshee pcattl e used to play a general role in the religious life of the Romans and their sacrifice was known as suovetaurilia. Longitudinal splitting and offering of halved head of pig (half skull + mandible) was a common custom known since the Celtic people 5 3 . Hen appeared as element of the sacrifices in Europe in the Iron Age. 4 9 van der Driesch-Pöllath 2000. Tabi. 3. 5 0 Téglás 1886. 129. 5 1 Vermaseren-van Essen 1965. 171. 5 2 CIMRM II. 1105., Huld-Zetsche 1986. 21. 5 3 Vörös 1994b
