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Exploring the Mithraeum of Roman London

Exploring the Mithraeum of Roman London

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Bloomberg London

A glass walkway allows you to get inside the temple without touching
it. You are then treated to a rather cheesy sound and light show.

London is a massive city with 2,000 years of history behind it. It’s hard to tell these days, but the banking and financial center of it all, with its frantic building, insider wheeling and dealing, and massive cocaine consumption, is actually the oldest neighborhood. This center of commerce is called “the City”, and its area corresponds to the Roman city of Londinium, founded around 43 AD.

Not much has survived the centuries, just a section of the original city wall and a few traces in the cellars of later buildings. In 1954, however, a subterranean temple was found that belongs to one of the ancient empire’s foremost mystery religions — Mithraism. Little is known for certain about this religion since its rites were private and most written accounts are by early Christians seeking to destroy the faith.

The cult centered around worship of the god Mithras, who originated in Persia. One common scene in Mithraic iconography shows Mithras being born out of a rock, and this may be why his temple, called a mithraeum, is generally located underground. It was a secretive religion that only accepted men, and this is one of the reasons it eventually lost out to the more inclusive Christianity.

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Treasure from a Phoenician Shipwreck

Treasure from a Phoenician Shipwreck

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For the past couple of weeks I’ve been blogging about the sights of Málaga, Spain, most notably the popular castles of Alcazaba and Gibralfaro. Less well-known to casual visitors is the Ifergan Gallery, a private collection of ancient art collected by local wealthy collector Vicente Jimenez Ifergan.

I’d like to meet Ifergan, because if I ever get to be rich, this is something I’d do — collect ancient treasures from a dozen different civilizations and open a museum to show them off. The museum, while rather small, has some choice finds from Greece, Rome, Egypt, Iran, Mesopotamia, and more. The most interesting room showcases a large collection of Phoenician terracotta votive statuettes from the 9th to 3rd centuries BC.

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Exploring the Alcazaba of Málaga, Spain

Exploring the Alcazaba of Málaga, Spain

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The Alcazaba with the ruins of a Roman theater in the foreground

Last week I had the pleasure of spending five days in Málaga, a historic port on Spain’s south coast. Founded by the Phoenicians around the 8th century BC, it continued to be important during Roman times and well into the modern era. While it was never one of the major ports like Barcelona, it always saw brisk trade.

The main attractions are two museums dedicated to local-boy-done-good Pablo Picasso and a pair of impressive medieval castles. The first is the Alcazaba, which loomed over the town and we’ll talk about today. Next week’s castle is further upslope and is called the Gibralfaro.

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A Bit of the Roman Empire in my Pocket

A Bit of the Roman Empire in my Pocket

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As a writer, sometimes I get my inspiration in strange ways.

Going to art galleries is one. For some reason, enjoying fine art that isn’t writing fires up my writing. I also like to collect odd and interesting objects, although they have to be cheap because, you know, I’m a writer.

One of my favorites is this Roman coin that I snagged for 10 euros ($11.50) at a local coin shop. It was so cheap because the coin is in pretty bad condition. I didn’t care, because it’s cool to keep a piece of the empire in my pocket.

For a year I wasn’t able to identify it, but then at a party in Oxford I lucked out. I was showing it off and one of the people there knew a former numismatist for the British Museum. We took a couple of shots of it and sent it to her. An hour later I learned it was a coin of Magnentius, a usurper who ruled in the Western Roman Empire from AD 350-353.

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Exploring the Tomb of Idu at Giza

Exploring the Tomb of Idu at Giza

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The rather unobtrusive entrance to the tomb. Like most
mastabas, its superstructure has disappeared over time.

Put on your pith helmets, Black Gate readers, because today we’re going into an ancient Egyptian tomb!

This tomb, on the Giza plateau, was built for Idu, an inspector of priests of the pharaohs Khufu and Khafre and overseer of scribes. Idu made sure the rites and rituals in honor of the departed pharaohs were done properly, and that the priests had all the equipment they needed. Idu lived in the VI Dynasty, probably during the reign of Pepi I (2332-2283 BC), a couple of hundred years after the death of these two important pharaohs. The most prominent Egyptian pharaohs had cults that lasted centuries.

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Competition in Ancient Greece

Competition in Ancient Greece

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Marble statue of a discus thrower. Second century A.D. copy
of a fifth century B.C. Greek original. Said to have been found
in Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli. The Emperor Hadrian had quite a
thing for beautiful young athletes. His favorite youth, Antinous,
was immortalized in numerous statues. Antinous didn’t have
those awesome deltoids, though.

It’s autumn, and that means here in Madrid the summer art shows are wrapping up and the autumn exhibitions are upon us. Madrid has several fine galleries and world-class museums to choose from, and the line-up this year is looking pretty good. Stay tuned for some fun shows here on Black Gate.

In the meantime, one of the last of the summer shows to finish is Agon! Competition in Ancient Greece at the Caixa Forum, a private gallery owned by one of the big Spanish banks. The show brings together dozens of objects from the British Museum in London, some of which are usually on permanent display there and others that I’ve never seen before.

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Four Thousand Year Old Bread from Ancient Egypt

Four Thousand Year Old Bread from Ancient Egypt

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Here’s something you don’t see every day, some preserved bread from the Eleventh Dynasty (2134-1991 BC) from Thebes. I snapped this photo in the Cairo Museum during a recent writing retreat.

… and I’m afraid that’s all I have for you this week from Egypt. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m working as a ghostwriter and I have a heinous deadline for a novel due this Friday. I’m also finishing up a short nonfiction booklet and my own novel, the one I went to Cairo to write in the first place. A minor character knocked the plot sideways and added 10,000 words to it.

So if I don’t want to be eating this bread next week, I have to get back to writing. But here are some more pics because I love you.

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The Queens’ Pyramids at Giza

The Queens’ Pyramids at Giza

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The pyramid of Menkaure (2532-2504 BC) and
its three Queens’ Pyramids, looking east

We’ve all seen the pictures. Tucked beside the massive pyramids at Giza are a few little pyramids. They are generally described in one line as the “Queens’ Pyramids” or “satellite pyramids” and not mentioned any further. They seem like such an afterthought to the awe-inspiring pyramids of Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, not to mention the Sphinx, that they get all but forgotten. But why were these monuments built? And who were they for?

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Mastabas: Early Tombs of Ancient Egypt

Mastabas: Early Tombs of Ancient Egypt

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Interior of the mastaba of Meresankh III. The row of
statues shows the queen and female members of her family

Not everyone gets a pyramid when they die.

As nice as it would be for everyone to get their own massive stone monument that lasts for all time, it’s really expensive and the one percenters want to have something of their own that makes them feel special.

So for those of us who don’t get to rule over Ancient Egypt with an iron fist, but aren’t so poor that we’re stuck in a shallow pit in the desert, there’s the mastaba, a home away home where we can spend the afterlife.

Mastabas were rectangular buildings made of mud brick or stone containing a few rooms and a burial chamber beneath it reached via a vertical shaft. They were wonderfully decorated on the inside and had a place for making offerings to the dead.

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Shabtis: Servants in the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife

Shabtis: Servants in the Ancient Egyptian Afterlife

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Some very bling shabtis from the 18th dynasty tomb of Yuya and Thuya

We all know the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with death. What with their elaborate spells, mummification, and tomb preparations, you’d think that the Egyptian afterlife would be one big vacation. After all that preparation they deserved a bit of rest.

Not so. The gods subjected the deceased to all sorts of jobs and obligations. The afterlife was just like our world, where all the usual cultivation and manufacturing had to be done. If you didn’t want to spend eternity doing manual labor, you needed to have some hired help.

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