Tauroctony
Sign in to savethumb|CIMRM 641: Tauroctony scene on side A of a two-sided Roman bas-relief. 2nd or 3rd century, found at Fiano Romano, near [[Rome, now on display in the Louvre. In the upper corners are Helios with the raven, and Luna.]]
~16 min read
Encyclopedic overview
11 sectionsContents
- Art
- Mithras with the bull
- Ancillary elements
- Interpretation
- Traditional Cumontian view
- Modern astrological interpretations
- Legacy
- Notes
- References
- Bibliography
- External links
thumb|CIMRM 641: Tauroctony scene on side A of a two-sided Roman bas-relief. 2nd or 3rd century, found at Fiano Romano, near [[Rome, now on display in the Louvre. In the upper corners are Helios with the raven, and Luna.]]
Tauroctony is a modern name given to the central cult reliefs of the Mithraic Mysteries in the Roman Empire. The imagery depicts Mithras killing a bull, hence the name tauroctony after the Greek word (, "bull killing"). A tauroctony is distinct from the sacrifice of a bull in ancient Rome called a ; the was mainly part of the unrelated cult of Cybele.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Tauroctony” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.