HOMEPAGE

The rich archaeological, epigraphic and figurative monuments of the Roman cult of Mithras are among the most striking objects in the museums and archaeological parks of Central-Eastern Europe. At the same time, the cult was one of the defining, empire-shaping phenomena in the religious life of the Roman Empire, and its impact can clearly be traced in its Renaissance and contemporary afterlives. Using contemporary digital tools, the project aims to map and digitise the complete Mithraic epigraphic, figurative and archaeological material from the middle and lower Danubian provinces, and to investigate the glocal characteristics of the cult’s ancient social mobility and lived religious aspects, as well as its influence on Renaissance reception history, contemporary museology and present-day religions. For the first time, the cult of an ancient deity, its archaeological and literary sources, and its contemporary reception history and museological aspects will be examined through an interdisciplinary methodology and basic research on new, or to-be-reinterpreted, case studies.

Principal Investigator: Dr habil. Csaba Szabó (Department of Religious Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Szeged). His studies on Mithras are collected here.

Core members: Dr Tünde Vágási, Ernő Szabó (PhD candidate), Attila Hajdú (PhD candidate).

Other researchers: Dr Boglárka Fábián, Dr habil. Réka Szilárdi, Ilona Lovász, Tamás Milbich, Tibor Budai-Balogh, Tiffany Fülöp.

Partner institutions: to be announced soon.

Project YouTube and Facebook pages.

Press coverage: here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

Grant awarded: HUF 159,500,000.

Contact address: SZTE BTK Vallástudományi Tanszék, Egyetem utca 2, 6722, Szeged. Email: lenduletmithras@gmail.com