Il dio leontocefalo dei Misteri Mitriaci

Raffaella Bortolin,

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Abstract

The lion-headed god of the mithraic mysteries represents one of most unusual images in Mithra god's cult places, where it is not appearing in a systematic way.
The god's representation is characterized from a complex iconography: a figure with the body of man and the head of lion whitout exact identification and denomination. This situation is complicated by many other factors: an archaeological reduced documentation, chronological generic indications and the total absence of mithraic texts. ln fact, the unique textual data available are those of the classical and Christians authors, those philosophical and magic-religious.
The epigraphical records don't produce precise indications concerning the name of divinity. The only known registration, belonging to the relief from York, is of uncertain reading. This explains the numerous studies that have tried to clarify the role of lion-headed god, which is interpreted as time-god, evil-god or as a soul's keeper. On the base of a systematic analysis of all data known, this paper intends to propose a new interpretation of both god's iconographical origin and meaning.

Keywords

• Misteri Mitriaci