Marisia - Maros Megyei Múzeum Évkönyve 32/2. (2012)
Articles
Notes on a Mithraic Relief from Dragu 137 specialized literature and the sources are lacunose when it comes to the rituals of mithraic initiations in Dacia (Merkelbach 1984, 86-133; Nemeti-Nemeti 2005, 109) it is more than likely that the rite and process of initiation mean the existence of a sanctuary, or a relief or of a central statue (Kultbild, Götterbild: CIMRM 34, 181, 230, 310, 352, 390, 415, 548, 592, 593, 1083, 1149, 1292, 1935, 1958, 1972, 1973, 2063) and of a community (László et al. 2005 II, 67-103; Beck 2006, 105; Nicolae 2011, 71). If they are not present the religious role and context of small sized mithraic reliefs from marginal areas is harder to interpret, especially in lack of evidence about the existence of a sanctuary. The relief from Dragu has a height of 32-41 cm, a length of 50 cm and a width of 2.5-6.5 cm thus being part of medium sized votive monuments that form the mithraic repertoire from Dacia. The material is tuff stone. The existence of the relief is not proof strong enough for the existence of a sanctuary or a mithraic community in Dragu, the same case is valid for several settlements with Roman finds from Dacia (CIMRM 1918, 1934, 2011, 2026, 2153, 2154, 2162, 2163); thus we cannot define for certain the votive, sacral nature of the object, being either an ex-voto from a sanctuary or a relief belonging to the private cult of the Roman god Mithras (Latteur 2011). With a single main registry the piece belong to type 1 .b in the present typology of mithraic reliefs from Dacia (Sicoe 2004, 287-289) or reliefs with just one registry. The hard material and the poor design indicate a local or regional workshop (Napoca - maybe Porolissum or Gherla) but not a central one (Sarmizegetusa or Apulum: Sicoe 2004, 285-287), being part of the products of provincial art with many iconographic “anomalies”. The shape of the relief is a rarely found one in the mithraic repertoire: the central scene is in an aedicula-naiskos, with two well designed columns with outlined capitals, decorated with vegetative motifs and in the tympanum one can find the well known elements of mithraic iconography but in an untypical disposition (left to right): the lion that moves, looking to the right, Sol’s bust (the head is missing), covered with a mantle decorated with an oval fibula, holding the whip from the quadriga in his right hand (CIMRM 1919, 274), Lunas bust with the typical symbol, highly disproportionate when compared to that of Sol and the raven looking to the left, towards the lion. Both animals are represented on complex reliefs in the main registry (the lion under the bull, the raven on Mithras’ mantle, Beck 2006, 194-195). The aedicule shape of the relief has few analogies in Dacia but also in the Empire (CIMRM 1127, 1345, 1902, 1907, 2018, 2037, 2216, 2244, 2305, indirectly on the relief from Dieburg, CIMRM 1247), imitating a Roman classical building, unusual for a mithraeum, but we find analogies in the repertoire of other Oriental or syncretistic cults (Tudor 1976, 66; Piso 1993, 830; Nemeti 1998, 96, 99; Boda-Szabó 2011, 275). The main scene in the central registry is that of the slaying of the bull, the main motif of ‘star talk’ (László et al. 2005 I, 206-226; Beck 2006, 194-222): Mithras in Persian garments, with the tunic tight around his waist, the mantle in the wind, the god looking in front of him and not towards Sol as is usual, holding the dagger in the right hand at the bull’s neck and in the left hand he holds the jaws of the animal. Under the bull out of the typical symbols only the scorpion and the snake are represented, the last being a later addition (the dog being an alternative and polysemantic element in the ‘star-talk’ is not featured on the relief, although Vermaseren claims it does: CIMRM 1919,273). The scene of the killing of the bull is surrounded by torchbearer, in a typical stance, but with unusual elements (Hinnells 1976, 38-40): the character from the right part of the relief is dressed in Oriental garments, with a short tunic, the Phrygian cap and the right
