Research fields

The project will focus on four major research fields (RF).

RF1. CIMRM Supplement of the Danubian provinces (Pann Inf-Sup, Moesia Inf-Sup, Dacia): in situ documentation, collection, documentation, reinterpretation of the material and the creation of an open access digital database for the monuments. This part of the work inclused also the material of the newly discovered Mithraeum VI. from Aquincum. Responsable persons: Csaba Szabó, Tünde Vágási, Ernő Szabó, Boglárka Fábián, Tamás Milbich and Tibor Balogh-Budai with several local collaborators (Paula Zsidi, Orsolya Láng, Cristina Mitar, Cristina Bodó, Irina Nemeti, Eugenia Beu-Dachin, Nadezda Gavrilovic, Aleksandra Nestorovic, Gabrielle Kremer, etc.).

 
RF2. Social history and religious glocalism in the cult of Mithras: detailed analysis of the epigraphic, archaeological, iconographic and religious (literary) sources, network studies and data visualisation of the cult’s local and glocal aspects. Responsible persons: Csaba Szabó, Tünde Vágási, Ernő Szabó and several collaborators (Annamaria Pázsint, Róbert Péter, Levente Nagy, Nirvana Silnovic, Ales Chalupa).

RF3. Reception history of Mithras before Cumont: a comprehensive analysis of the literary (textual) sources and glocal (continental and local) historiographic analysis of the reception history of Mithras in Renaissance and early Modern works in the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th century, with a special focus on authors from Central-Eastern Europe. RF3 will create also the first comprehensive bibliography of Mithras and its big-data analysis and visualisation. Responsible persons: Csaba Szabó, Attila Hajdú, Tünde Vágási, Ernő Szabó, Róbert Péter and Tiffany Fülöp.

RF4. Mithras today: pop-cultural and museological perspectives in the contemporary study of Mithras. RF4 will focus on the reinterpretation and reinvention of Mithras in contemporary art, religion, public archaeology and museology. RF4 will also create a Virtual Mithraeum of the newly discovered Mithraeum from Aquincum and several open access material for the promotion and presentation of the cult of Mithras and Roman heritage, as global heritage in local museums. Responsible persons: Csaba Szabó, Ilona Lovász, Réka Szilárdi, Tamás Milbich, Tibor Budai-Balogh and several other collaborators (IT team – tbh).