Believe it or
not, London
can boost on its own Temple
of Mithras built by the
Romans in 240 AD on the bank of the small river Walbrook that once flowed
through the city.
[Picture from: The Guardian, London Mithraeum is housed in Bloomberg’s European headquarters. Photograph: James Newton]
Today’s visitor has
to go Bloomberg’s new European Headquarters and descend the steep stairs to the
Roman street
level, some seven meters under our modern roads. Admission is free but advanced
booking is recommended (For all information, click London Mithraeum).
Mithras the bull-slayer is a
young god who came from the east and was much loved by the soldiers who used to
worship him in underground temples where the blood of the sacrificial animals
mingled with the mud floor. Its mysterious rites have been reconstructed as
faithfully as possible with the sound of shuffling sandals in the background. A
recording of a choir recites in Latin the names of the different levels of
initiates as found among the graffiti in a similar temple in Rome . The cult itself is otherwise
still shrouded in mystery and the secret remains very well guarded. No records
on the subject have reached us.
The Roman temple was discovered
in 1954 when the ruins of London after
the raids of WWII were being cleaned up. The head of the young god found among
the rubble was identified as Mithras and provided the clue. The discovery was,
however, not appreciated at its right value and for years the temple
foundations were stored in a builder’s yard. In 1962, the walls were partially
but badly reconstructed some 30
meters from their finding place but much of the original
material like the timber benches were lost or thrown away.
It appears that Bloomberg’s
European Headquarters stand on one of the richest archaeological sites in London .
Sadly much was destroyed by later constructions. But there is good news too as
the soggy ground contributed to the startling preservation of hundreds of
wooden tablets carrying faint inscriptions – the oldest handwritten testimonies
from Roman Britain on which the name of Londinium is mentioned for the first
time.
The Mithraeum has now returned to
its original place where an art gallery on ground level is hosting more than
600 objects found on this site, like a wooden door, a sandal with hobnails, or a
wooden tablet containing the oldest financial transaction in Britain . The
head of Mithras mentioned above has been moved to the Museum of London together
with other beautiful carvings.
Until now, all the representations of the god
Mithras I have seen were fragmentary and usually limited to the very god in his
dominant position above the bull which was often missing also. To my surprise,
I recently saw a large and nearly intact high relief of Mithras at the Louvre-Lens Museum ,
a dependence of the Louvre in Paris
exhibiting a most interesting collection of artifacts in their Gallery of Time
which ranges from the Assyrians all the way to Napoleon. Judge for yourself:
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