History Commons^™

The Origins And Identity Of Roman Mithraism, Charles R. Hill

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

This thesis is a reassessment of scholarship concerning the origins of the cult mysteries of Mithraism in its Roman form during the Imperial Period. While much has been published in the debate over the cult’s true origins, we are still left without a satisfactory answer. The present work is an attempt to reconcile some of the arguments posed in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries with those of the later 20^th and 21^st centuries, focusing mostly on the cult’s art and iconography in Mithraea, the central spaces of Mithraic worship. First will be a summary of …