Tauroctony
From The Book of THoTH (Leaves of Wisdom)
The tauroctony depicts Mithras ritually slaying the bull. The actual sacrifice itself is known as a taurobolium.
The highly standardized iconic depiction was developed in the school of sculptors active in Pergamum circa 200 BCE, possibly adapting the standardized representation of Alexander (Untersteiner1946, et al.) It shows Mithras stabbing a bull: from the wound grains of wheat flow, lapped by a dog and a serpent, while a scorpion attacks the bull's testicles; two smaller figures, the celestial twins of light and darkness (Cautes and Cautopates, with lit and extinguished torches) aid Mithras. Mithras kneels on the bull's shoulder, looking away behind him, not directly at his act. His open cape flows back, revealing its starry lining.
Some, notably David Ulansey, believe this symbolism is based on the precession of the equinoxes, and that the Scorpion represents the constellation Scorpio and the bull represents Taurus. However this theory is still contentious as it requires backdating the existence of Mithraism to the period 4000BC to 2000BC, whereas the earliest evidence for its existence comes from only circa 200BC.
The tauroctony, in its firmly established iconic formula, served among other well-known Hellenistic sculptures to inspire Neoclassicism. The image was adapted for a Prix de Rome sculpture of The Madness of Orestes by Raymond Bathélmy (1860); the prize-winning plaster model remains in the collection of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, where it was included in the 2004 travelling exhibition "Dieux et Mortels" [1].
See also
- Taurobolium
- Mithraism
- Taurus
External links
- Mithra References Page
- The Mithraic Mysteries by David Ulansey Scientific American, December 1989 (vol. 261, #6), pp. 130-135.
- Mithraism by Roger Beck from the The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies
- Mario Untersteiner, 1946. La fisiologia del mita ("The Physiology of Myth") (Milan: Bocca). Quoted in Joseph Campbell, 1964. Occidental Mythology: the Masks of God p 257.
--Angel 16:19, 22 May 2006 (CDT)
