engleski

Some questions about mithraic sanctuaries

The paper discusses certain questions about sacred places in Mithraism based on the mithraea from the area of the Roman province of Dalmatia. In the territory of the Empire Mithraic sanctuaries are often placed in the previously abandoned or isolated spaces of public and private buildings. There are also a few examples where sacred spaces within existing sanctuaries are adapted into Mithraic shrines. Also, when it comes to the extra-urban areas there are mithraea for whose construction in the countryside the “architecture” of the environment is used. The existence of such structures remains recorded in the characteristic toponyms. Some authors believe that there is a continuity between the existence of the mithraea and later Christian shrines, dedicated to the specific saints. This paper discusses legal and administrative processes required for the transformation and/or sacralisation of different spaces into mithraea in the period between the Principate and late Antiquity. Is there a link between names used for Mithraic shrines that appear on the inscriptions (spelaeum, fanum, aedes, etc.) and their position, architecture? Furthermore, the paper also examines whether the existence of the mithraea in the Roman province of Dalmatia was recorded by the modern toponomastics and if their presence could be followed in the hagiotopography.

Mithra ; Mithraism ; cult spaces ; roman province of Dalmatia

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