Illustration
Mithras looks away from the dying bull, up to the moon. Also, Mithras has a few little helpers that accompany him in taking the bull's fertility: a dog and a snake drink from the bull's blood, and a scorpion stings the bulls scrotum. A raven sits on the bull's tail that ends in ears of corn. The raven could have played the role of a mediator between Mithras and the sun god Sol invictus, with whom Mithras will share the meat of the bull. He looks down at the scene from the upper left corner.
2nd or 3rd century CE. Römisch-Germanisches Museum, Cologne, Germany.
License & Copyright
Based on Wikipedia content that has been reviewed, edited, and republished.
Original image by Marcuc Cyron. Uploaded by Pierre A. Thomé, published on 24 March 2015. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
Related Images
Mithra
Mithra on Horseback
Statue of Mithras
Statue of tauroctony (Mithras slaying the bull)
Head of Mithras
Mithras Sacrificing a Bull
Cite This Work
APA Style
Cyron, M. (2015, March 24). Cult Relief of the Mithraic Mysteries. World History Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://www.worldhistory.org/image/3725/cult-relief-of-the-mithraic-mysteries/
Chicago Style
Cyron, Marcuc. "Cult Relief of the Mithraic Mysteries." World History Encyclopedia. Last modified March 24, 2015. https://www.worldhistory.org/image/3725/cult-relief-of-the-mithraic-mysteries/.
MLA Style
Cyron, Marcuc. "Cult Relief of the Mithraic Mysteries." World History Encyclopedia. World History Encyclopedia, 24 Mar 2015. Web. 21 Feb 2025.
