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With a history of use extending back to Vedic texts of the second millennium BC, derivations of the name Mithra appear in the Roman Empire, across Sasanian Persia, and in the Kushan Empire of southern Afghanistan and northern India during the first millennium AD. Even today, this name has a place in Yazidi and Zoroastrian religion. But what connection have Mihr in Persia, Miiro in Kushan Bactria, and Mithras in the Roman Empire to one another? Over the course of the volume, specialists in the material culture of these diverse regions explore appearances of the name Mithra from six distinct locations in antiquity. In a subversion of the usual historical process, the authors begin not from an assessment of texts, but by placing images of Mithra at the heart of their analysis. Careful consideration of each example's own context, situating it in the broader scheme of religious traditions and on-going cultural interactions, is key to this discussion. Such an approach opens up a host of potential comparisons and interpretations that are often side-lined in historical accounts. What Images of Mithra offers is a fresh approach to the ways in which gods were labelled and depicted in the ancient world. Through an emphasis on material culture, a more nuanced understanding of the processes of religious formation is proposed in what is but the first part of the Visual Conversations series.

Mithraism. --- Mithracisme --- Mithraism --- Mithraskult. --- Mithras. --- Indo-Europeans --- Antiquities.

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"This is the first full cognitive history of an ancient religious practice. In this ground-breaking study on one of the most intriguing and mysterious cults, Olympia Panagiotidou with Roger Beck, shows how cognitive historiography can supplement our historical knowledge and deepen our understanding of past cultural phenomena. The cult of the sun god Mithras, which spread widely across the Graeco-Roman world at the same time as other 'mystery cults', offered to its devotees certain images and assumptions about reality. Initiation into the mysteries of Mithras and participation in the life of the cult significantly affected and transformed the ways in which the initiated perceived themselves, the world and their position within it. The cult's major ideas were conveyed mainly through its major symbolic complexes. The ancient written testimonies and other records are not adequate to establish a definitive reconstruction of Mithraic theologies and the meaning of its complex symbolic structures"--Back cover.

11.17 Roman religion. --- Mithraism. --- Mithraskult. --- Religion. --- Rome (Empire). --- Rome --- Mithraism --- Cognition et culture --- Mithra (divinité zoroastrienne) --- Culte --- Mysteries, Religious --- Mithras (Zoroastrian deity) --- Cult --- Religion --- Cult. --- Mysteries, Religious - Rome --- Mithras (Zoroastrian deity) - Cult --- Rome - Religion