- Tauroctony
A tauroctony is an artistic depiction of the mythic hero and ancient religious savior
Mithras engaged in the ritual slaying of a bull. The literal act of sacrifice is known astaurobolium . A tauroctony was found, its representation essentially unchanging, at the center of everymithraeum .The highly formulaic scene was developed in the school of sculptors active in
Pergamum circa 200BCE, possibly adapting the formulaic representation of Alexander (Untersteiner 1946, "et al.") In the depiction, Mithras, wearing aPhrygian cap and pants, slays the bull, kneeling on its back with his left knee while looking away. His cape billows behind him showing its inner side. A serpent and dog seem to drink from the bull's open wound (which often spills blood but occasionally grain), and a scorpion attacks the bull's testicles. Typically, a raven or crow is also present, and sometimes also a goblet and small lion.Cautes and Cautopates , the celestial twins of light and darkness, are torch-bearers, standing on either side with their legs crossed, Cautes with his brand pointing up and Cautopates with his turned down. Above Mithras, the symbols forSol and Luna are present in the starry night sky. See the very similarEnkidu tauroctony seal.The modern consensus is that the scene seems to be astrological in nature. ["...there has emerged a new consensus, that the tauroctony symbolizes Mithraic doctrine that is essentially astral," writes Alan C. Bowen, reviewing David Ulansey, "The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries: Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World" in "Isis" 82.2 (June 1991) p 359.] It has been proposed by David Ulansey that the tauroctony, rather than an originally
Iran ian animal sacrifice scene with Iranian precedents, asFranz Cumont deciphered it, [Cumont, "Textes et monuments figurés relatifs aux mystères de Mithra" (1896-99).] embodies a symbolic representation of the constellations, and, more speculatively, that it depicts Mithra's control of theprecession of the equinoxes , a phenomenon that was discovered byHipparchus (Ulansey, 1991). The identification of some constellations is clear enough: the bull is Taurus, the serpent Hydra, the dogCanis Major or Minor, the crow or raven Corvus, the goblet Crater, the lion Leo, and, more speculatively, the wheat-blood the starSpica . The torch-bearers may represent the twoequinox es, the points where thezodiac crosses thecelestial equator , although this is less clear. Mithras himself could also be associated withPerseus , whose constellation is above that of the bull.The tauroctony and other well-known
Hellenistic sculptures helped to inspireNeoclassicism . The image was adapted for aPrix de Rome sculpture of "The Madness of Orestes" byRaymond Bathélmy (1860); the prize-winning plaster model remains in the collection of theÉcole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts , where it was included in the 2004 travelling exhibition "Dieux et Mortels" [http://19thc-artworldwide.org/spring_05/reviews/beau.html] .See also
*
Taurobolium
*Mithraism
* TaurusNotes
External links
* [http://www.tylwythteg.com/mithra.html Mithra References Page]
* [http://www.well.com/user/davidu/sciam.html The Mithraic Mysteries by David Ulansey] Scientific American, December 1989 (vol. 261, #6), pp. 130-135.
*Mario Untersteiner, 1946. "La fisiologia del mita" ("The Physiology of Myth") (Milan: Bocca). Quoted inJoseph Campbell , 1964. "Occidental Mythology: the Masks of God" p 257.
* [http://www.lochanpress.com Christ and the Taurobolium - Lord Mithras in the genesis of Christianity] , D.K. Malloch, Lochan Press, 2006, ISBN: 978-0-9540786-1-4.
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