Savaria Mithraeum

Last updated April 23, 2019

Savaria Mithraeum was the shrine of Mithras in the Roman town of Savaria (now Szombathely, Hungary) which was discovered in 2008.

The Roman Empire was the post-Roman Republic period of the ancient Roman civilization. Ruled by emperors, it had large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. From the constitutional reforms of Augustus to the military anarchy of the third century, the Empire was a principate ruled from the city of Rome. The Roman Empire was then ruled by multiple emperors and divided in a Western Roman Empire, based in Milan and later Ravenna, and an Eastern Roman Empire, based in Nicomedia and later Constantinople. Rome remained the nominal capital of both parts until 476 AD, when Odoacer deposed Romulus Augustus after capturing Ravenna and the Roman Senate sent the imperial regalia to Constantinople. The fall of the Western Roman Empire to barbarian kings, along with the hellenization of the Eastern Roman Empire into the Byzantine Empire, is conventionally used to mark the end of Ancient Rome and the beginning of the Middle Ages.

Szombathely is the 10th largest city in Hungary. It is the administrative centre of Vas county in the west of the country, located near the border with Austria. Szombathely lies by the streams Perint and Gyöngyös, where the Alpokalja mountains meet the Little Hungarian Plain. The oldest city in Hungary, it is known as the birthplace of Saint Martin of Tours.

Hungary is a country in Central Europe. Spanning 93,030 square kilometres (35,920 sq mi) in the Carpathian Basin, it borders Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Austria to the northwest, Romania to the east, Serbia to the south, Croatia to the southwest, and Slovenia to the west. With about 10 million inhabitants, Hungary is a medium-sized member state of the European Union. The official language is Hungarian, which is the most widely spoken Uralic language in the world, and among the few non-Indo-European languages to be widely spoken in Europe. Hungary's capital and largest city is Budapest; other major urban areas include Debrecen, Szeged, Miskolc, Pécs and Győr.

History

The cult of Mithras was popular in the Roman province of Pannonia. Archeological evidences proved its presence in Aquincum, Fertőrákos and Sárkeszi but its popularity in Savaria, the capital of Pannonia Prima was only proved in 2008 when a mithraeum was unearthed in the vicinity of the most important surviving Roman monument of the town, the shrine of Isis.

The Roman provinces were the lands and people outside of Rome itself that were controlled by the Republic and later the Empire. Each province was ruled by a Roman who was appointed as governor. Although different in many ways, they were similar to the states in Australia or the United States, the regions in the United kingdom or New Zealand, or the prefectures in Japan. Canada refers to some of its territory as provinces.

Pannonia was a province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia. Pannonia was located over the territory of the present-day western Hungary, eastern Austria, northern Croatia, north-western Serbia, northern Slovenia, western Slovakia and northern Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Aquincum was an ancient city, situated on the northeastern borders of the province of Pannonia within the Roman Empire. The ruins of the city can be found today in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary. It is believed that Marcus Aurelius wrote at least part of his book Meditations at Aquincum.

The Savaria Mithraeum was used until the 4th century when it was burned down and collapsed. The mithraeum was discovered during the building works of a new shopping center in 2008. The remains were excavated by local archeologists who claimed that the discovery is of European importance. The ruins will be preserved in the basement of the new plaza. Many other finds were unearthed in the area like an intact Roman cellar and a 3 m wide, stone waterdrain that was repaired in the 19th century.

Remains

Two stone altars were uncovered which were decorated with scenes from the life of Mithras in reliefs and had dedicative inscriptions. The inner room and the narthex of the shrine was decorated with wall paintings. The frescoes are being restored by experts from the collected fragments. Their design were geometric with some figurative scenes. The ceiling was coffered. The ancient painters used expensive pigments like Egyptian Blue and vermilion. There were stone benches along the walls in the inner room.

Vermilion is both a brilliant red or scarlet pigment, originally made from the powdered mineral cinnabar, and the name of the resulting color. It was widely used in the art and decoration of Ancient Rome, in the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, in the paintings of the Renaissance, as sindoor in India, and in the art and lacquerware of China.

Related Research Articles

Mithraism, also known as the Mithraic mysteries, was a mystery religion centered on the god Mithras that was practiced in the Roman Empire from about the 1st to the 4th century CE. The religion was inspired by Iranian worship of the god Mithra, though the Greek Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery, and the level of continuity between Persian and Greco-Roman practice is debated. The mysteries were popular among the Roman military.

A mosaic is a piece of art or image made from the assembling of small pieces of colored glass, stone, or other materials. It is often used in decorative art or as interior decoration. Most mosaics are made of small, flat, roughly square, pieces of stone or glass of different colors, known as tesserae. Some, especially floor mosaics, are made of small rounded pieces of stone, and called "pebble mosaics".

The London Mithraeum, also known as the Temple of Mithras, Walbrook, is a Roman mithraeum that was discovered in Walbrook, a street in the City of London, during a building's construction in 1954. The entire site was relocated to permit continued construction and this temple of the mystery god Mithras became perhaps the most famous 20th-century Roman discovery in London.

A Mithraeum(Latin pl. Mithraea), sometimes spelled Mithreum, is a large or small Mithraic temple, erected in classical antiquity by the worshippers of Mithras. Most Mithraea can be dated between 100 B.C. and A.D. 300, mostly in the Roman Empire.

Óbuda was a city in Hungary that was merged with Buda and Pest on 17 November 1873; it now forms part of District III-Óbuda-Békásmegyer of Budapest. The name means Old Buda in Hungarian. The name in Croatian and Serbian for this city is Stari Budim, but the local Croat minority calls it Obuda.

Transdanubia is a traditional region of Hungary.

Santa Prisca is a titular church of Rome, on the Aventine Hill, for Cardinal-priests. It is recorded as the Titulus Priscae in the acts of the 499 synod.

The Basilica of St. Stephen in the Round on the Celian Hill is an ancient basilica and titular church in Rome, Italy. Commonly named Santo Stefano Rotondo, the church is Hungary's "national church" in Rome, dedicated to both Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr, and Stephen I, the sanctified first king of Hungary who imposed Christianity on his subjects. The minor basilica is also the rectory church of the Pontifical Collegium Germanicum et Hungaricum.

Danube Promenade Promenade in Budapest, Hungary

The Danube Promenade is located on the Pest side of Budapest, Hungary. On the bank of the Danube, this promenade extends from the Széchenyi Chain Bridge to the Erzsébet Bridge.

Carrawburgh is a settlement in Northumberland. In Roman times, it was the site of a 3½ acre auxiliary fort on Hadrian's Wall called Brocolitia, Procolita, or Brocolita This name is probably based on the Celtic name for the place, and one possible translation put forward is 'badger holes'. The fort there was a mile or so west of the Wall's northernmost point at Limestone Corner, and just over a mile west of the nearest milecastle, Milecastle 30. The fort either used the Wall itself as its northern rampart, or was built parallel to it but detached. It certainly postdates both the Wall and the vallum.

The Fertőrákos Mithraeum is a temple to the Roman god Mithras at Fertőrákos in Hungary. The temple, follows a typical plan of a narthex followed by the shrine proper that consists of a sunken central nave with podium benches on either side.

Rudchester Mithraeum is a Roman Temple to the Roman god Mithras at Rudchester (Vindobala), an auxiliary fort on Hadrian's Wall, the northern frontier of Roman Britain. The temple was located 137m to the west of the castra. It is not currently visible to visitors to the site.

The Caernarfon Mithraeum is a Roman Temple to the Roman god Mithras. The temple was located 137 meters north-east of the Roman castra of Segontium on the outskirts of modern Caernarfon in Gwynedd, Wales.

Partiscum was a fort in the Roman province of Dacia along the limes of Marisus river. It is the most Western fort of Dacia. Its ruins are located nearby Szeged, Csongrád County, Hungary. Latest research showed that the most likely place was in Szeged, near the Tisza river, at the old Castle of Szeged.

The Jajce Mithraeum, or Jajački Mithraeum is a temple (mithraeum) dedicated to the Persian invisible sun god, Mithra. It was rediscovered in an archaeological dig in 1931 in Jajce, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The Tienen Mithraeum is a Mithraic temple constructed in the Belgian municipality of Tienen in the third century CE.

References

Pictures from the excavation

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

Savaria Mithraeum

Contents

History

Remains

See also

Related Research Articles

References