The Swastika As Representation of the Sun of Helios and Mithras
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Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Vol. 14, No 3, pp. 29-36 Copyright © 2014 MAA Printed in Greece. All rights reserved. THE SWASTIKA AS REPRESENTATION OF THE SUN OF HELIOS AND MITHRAS Mª Pilar Burillo-Cuadrado, Francisco Burillo-Mozota University of Zaragoza. Campus de Teruel. 44001, Teruel, Spain Corresponding author: ( [email protected]; [email protected] ) ABSTRACT At the 20th International Conference of the European Society for Astronomy in Cul- ture, held in Slovenia in 2012, Reza Assasi (2013) presented the paper ‘Swastika: The For- gotten Constellation Representing the Chariot of Mithras’, in which he identified Mithras and his quadriga with the constellation Draco, centre of the zodiac in the map of the stars. Thus he proposed a new interpretation that contradicted that accepted by researchers of the Mithraic religion who associate Mithras with the sun. This article aims to show that, contrary to this new interpretation, Mithras should still be identified with the solar deity. Mithraic iconography and liturgy is analysed in the present work, paying special attention to the relationship between the two solar deities Helios and Mithras. The context in which the swastika is depicted is analysed, demon- strating that it never represented a constellation but instead represented the sun. We fol- low the theory of David Ulansey (1994), which asserts that Mithras should be identified with the “hypercosmic sun”, the sphere of fire which Greek philosophers located beyond the starry heavens. KEYWORDS: Mithras, sun, swastika, Helios, hypercosmic sun, tauroctony, mithraeum 30 Mª PILAR BURILLO-CUADRADO et al. 1. INTRODUCTION reached Rome in Republican times. A com- The Mithraic religion appeared in the Ro- mon feature of the mystery religions was man Empire in the first century CE. Mithras their secrecy and an initiation ritual in which began to be studied in greater depth in the the initiate identified with the deity and was nineteenth century, when Franz Cumont promised the salvation of his soul and eter- (1896, 1897) first compiled the known texts nal life. Mithraism had two peculiarities: it and iconography depicting Mithras. Howev- was an exclusively male religion and the dei- er, little is known about Mithraic rituals be- ty did not die and rise from the dead (Alvar, cause there are no surviving liturgical texts. 2001, 93). Initiates were bound to secrecy, so the only accounts of its rituals to come down to us are the very biased and sometimes contradictory accounts of outsiders, such as Christian au- thors (Campos, 2010: 50). However, it is the mystery religion with the most surviving iconography, which explains the large num- ber of works devoted to the subject. But the symbols depicted are the subject of conflict- ing interpretations, which suggests that an appropriate methodology for their study needs to be developed. The oldest references to Mithras appear in the Vedic texts, which were studied by J. Figure 1. Mithraeum at Santa Maria di Capua (Italy). (Photograph F. Burillo). Gonda (1972) in relation to the ancient Indi- The Mithras cult was performed in an pantheon. Mithras is also found in the mithraea, small, rectangular underground Iranian world, in particular in the Avesta chambers, measuring about 23 by 9 meters, sacred texts (Thieme, 1957, 21). These eastern with sculpted or painted Mithraic iconogra- references have long been interpreted in phy at one end (Figure 1). The room was terms of the continuist theory first pro- flanked by two characteristic triclinium pounded by Franz Cumont (1903), who saw benches on which worshippers reclined for it as a development of Mazdaism, with in- the ritual feast. These sanctuaries could only teresting subsequent contributions. The de- accommodate a small group of believers, so bate continues to this day between propo- when their number increased another nents of the continuous development of a mithraeum was built, which explains their religion that originated in the Indo-Iranian abundance. It is estimated that there were world and those who think it developed its about 40 mithraea at Ostia and 100 in Rome, own identity in a Roman context (Alvar, of which we know approximately half 2001, 80). (Coarelli, 1979, 69). 2. THE MITHRAS CULT The Mithras cult in Roman society is 3. MITHRAIC ICONOGRAPHY found in the context of the mystery cults that The iconography relating to Mithras is ex- blossomed from the Hellenistic period on- tensive because images were very important wards and were at their height under the in the Mithraic religion and formed part of Roman Empire. Their popularity can be seen the mithraea, where they have been pre- in the Eleusinian Mysteries that arrived from served in their underground setting. The Magna Graecia, the Phrygian goddess Cybe- uniformity of Mithraic iconography le’s temple built in Rome in the late third throughout the Roman Empire is remarka- century BCE, the celebrations in honour of ble. The complex iconography allows three Bacchus-Dionysus observed in 186 BCE, and different levels to be discerned, with each of the cult of the Egyptian goddess Isis, which them forming part of the next. © University of the Aegean, 2014, Mediterranean Archaeology & Archaeometry, 14, 3 (2014) 29-36 THE SWASTIKA AS REPRESENTATION OF THE SUN 31 1) A group of sculptures depicting a tau- began to be defended in 1971 at the First In- roctony, the central element of Mithraic ico- ternational Congress of Mithraic Studies. nography, can be seen in many museums. There are two currents of thought: one, Mithras is depicted as a classically beautiful based on the fact that in some scenes the young man with a Phrygian cap denoting his bull's tail becomes an ear of wheat, sees its Persian origin. He is portrayed sacrificing a sacrifice an allegory of the life cycle: fertiliza- bull, which is shown submitting to him, its tion, regeneration and salvation of all crea- legs bent. The god stabs it with a dagger tion (Alvar, 2010, 71); the other, led by David while lifting its head by the nostrils with his Ulansey (1991), interprets the tauroctony as left hand and holding it down with his left an astronomical star map in which every leg bent against its back. There are always figure found in the standard tauroctony has three animals in this scene: a dog and a ser- a parallel in a group of constellations located pent licking the blood, and a scorpion driv- along a continuous band in the sky: the bull ing its claws into its testicles. is paralleled by Taurus, the dog by Canis 2) When an intact tauroctony is found in a Minor, the snake by Hydra, the raven by mithraeum it always occupies a central scene Corvus, and Scorpio by the scorpion. in the representation of a cave, which simu- 2) The meaning of some of the icons that lated the mithraeum itself. The sun is depict- appear in the mithraeum’s central scenes, ed in the upper left corner of the frame and such as the sun and the moon, is not in the moon is on the right. Two similarly at- doubt. In side scenes the cave appears to be tired young men wearing the same Phrygian linked to the birthplace of Mithras and there- cap as Mithras, who appear below the two fore, like the underground mithraeum itself, celestial bodies, are the torchbearers. The was intended to represent the cosmos. The inscriptions tell us their names: Cautes holds raven always appears as the intermediary the torch pointing up and Cautopates holds between the sun and Mithras. Cumont inter- it downwards. A raven often appears in this prets the torchbearers from their position scene and, less frequently, a lion and a cup. and the direction of the torch. Cautes is 3) Some mithraea contain only the scene shown below the sun and is holding the described above at one end, as in the case of torch pointing upwards, so one theory is that those at Duino and Capua, but it is usually he represents the sun itself. Cautopates flanked by a series of smaller scenes on each holds the torch pointing downwards and is side which depict the mythical life of Mith- shown below the moon, and so is identified ras, as seen in the Barberini mithraeum with the night. But there are other possibili- (CIMRM 390). The content of the panels is ties, such as that they represented life and not standardised in these complex scenes, death, east and west, or the rising sun and and it is not uncommon to find the signs of the setting sun (Alvar, 2001, 83). the zodiac, as in the case of the Barberini 3) The panels surrounding the mithraeum referred to above. mithraeum’s central scene allow the life of Mithras and his multiple meanings to be re- 4. MITHRAIC LITURGY constructed. The child Mithras is shown be- Unlike other mystery cults (the mysteries ing born from a rock which is sometimes of Isis, the cult of Attis, Serapis mysteries, egg-shaped and is identified as the embryon- etc.), where written documentation describ- ic world and the genesis of all things. Mith- ing their rites has survived, those of the ras is often depicted on the back of the bull, Mithraic religion have to be reconstructed catching it after its escape, and concluding mainly from the iconography. with the main scene showing its sacrifice. 1) The tauroctony was the central icon of The scenes in which Mithras is associated Mithraism; it depicts Mithras killing the bull. with Helios are particularly important in this The bull is Ahriman, the cosmic force of evil study, as is the arc of the zodiac sometimes in Iranian religion, according to Franz depicted, intensifying the symbolism of the Cumont (1903, 19).