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Monumentum

Mithraic brooch of Ostia

In the Mithraic bronze brooch found in Ostia, Cautes and Cautopates have been replaced by a nightingale and a cock.
Mithraic bronze brooch of Ostia

Mithraic bronze brooch of Ostia
Ostia-antica.org 

 
 
The New Mithraeum
28 Aug 2021
Updated on Sep 2023
 

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Bronze brooch (diam. 0.07), found at Ostia in 1899. It came together with the Sir John Evans Collection to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 1927.

The brooch is a thin disc of bronze slightly convex, and the reverse is plain, except for a high pin and catch-plate. Mithras slaying the bull. The god is in oriental dress and with a nimbus and crown of nine rays. He kneels in the normal manner on the bull, which bears two bands round its body and has a tail ending in a single tuft. Mithras raises the dagger. The wound is clearly visible and the dog stands by with open mouth to lick the blood.