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Monumentum

Mitreo Fagan

The Mitreo Fagan revealed remarkable sculptures of leon-headed figures now exposed at the Vatican Museum.
  • Tauroctonia del Mitreo Fagan, Ostia

    Tauroctonia del Mitreo Fagan, Ostia 

  • Leontocéfalo del Mitreo Fagan

    Leontocéfalo del Mitreo Fagan
    The New Mithraeum / Andreu Abuín (CC BY-SA) 

  • Detalle del leontocéfalo del Mitreo Fagan

    Detalle del leontocéfalo del Mitreo Fagan
    The New Mithraeum / Andreu Abuín (CC BY-SA) 

  • Relief avec divinité léontocéphale

    Relief avec divinité léontocéphale
    DR 

 
 
The New Mithraeum
19 Jun 2009
Updated on Jan 2022
 

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In the period between 1794 and 1800 the English painter Robert Fagan discovered a Mithraeum (Reg. III, Is. VIII), of which nowadays only extremely scarce data are known. It is situated between the Tor Boacciana and the Palazzo Imperiale. We know that a natural cave had been imitated, which was entered by a long narrow corridor.

Zoega, Abh., 198; Visconti in Ann. 1st. 1864, 151; Becatti, Mitrei Ostia, 119

———

This mithraeum was excavated by the Irish painter Robert Fagan between 1794 and 1802. Today it cannot be seen. It must be somewhere between the Palazzo Imperiale and the

Related monuments

Tauroctony marble from Mitreo Fagan

This sculpture of Mithras killing the bull was dedicated to the ’incomprehensible god’ by a certain priest called Gaius Valerius Heracles.

Aion of Mitreo Fagan

The marble Aion from the lost Mithraeum Fagan, Ostia, now presides the entrance to the Vatican Library.

Aion relief of Mitreo Fagan

This white marble relief depicting a lion-headed figure from Ostia is now exposed at the Musei Vaticani.

Marble slab with inscription from Mitreo Fagan

This monument bears an inscription that describes the god Mithra as young, which is quite unusual.