Toulouse: “The Mystery of Mithras”, to be seen until October at the Saint-Raymond Museum
The Saint-Raymond museum in Toulouse offers, from May 13 to October 30, an original exhibition which explores the “mystery of Mithras”, a Persian deity that became a mystical cult in the Roman Empire. An idea to go out for Museum Night, Saturday May 14th.
Enthusiasts of the polytheism of ancient Rome will find food for thought with the launch today of the first temporary exhibition since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic at the Saint-Raymond Museum in Toulouse, which focuses on “The mystery of Mithras” (from May 13 to October 30). The event, which received the label “Exposition of national interest” designated by the Ministry of Culture, offers “a “dive into the heart of a Roman cult”.
Basically, on an original idea by Laurent Bricault, professor of Roman history at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès. It is above all the fruit of a European co-production between the Saint-Raymond museum, the Royal museum of Mariemont (Belgium), which led to the success of the exhibition in these premises, and the Archäologisches Museum Franckfurt (Germany), whose representatives were present yesterday at a press briefing.
“A high scientific level”
“It’s an exhibition that has a high scientific, historical level and also an offbeat, pop culture tone,” said the deputy mayor in charge of culture Pierre Esplugas, enthusiastic about the quality of the event. He also has an unusual character.
The cult of Mithras, a divinity of Persian origin (Iran) widely represented in monumental sculptures from the Roman Empire (end of the 1st and end of the 4th century), “has never made the major monographic exhibition object in France”, notes the prefect of the Occitanie region Etienne Guyot. It is the beginning of Christianity, recognized by the Roman imperial power in the 4th century, which sounds the glass of adoration to Mithras. But from then on, a mystery sets in, the red thread of the exhibition.
130 works presented
By browsing the works installed on the ground floor of the museum which adjoins the Saint-Sernin basilica, the visitor actually travels through all of Europe from the Roman Empire, from Macedory to the Iberian Peninsula, coupled with a journey in the weather.
In particular, we must stop at Mithras killing the bull, which refers to the founding cult of the Pink City, one of the four marbles on loan from the Louvre Museum, which are part of the nine works discovered at the end of the 19th century in Sidon (Lebanon ). Mithras killing the bull is a tauroctony which dates from 390.
The main character, who slays the bull with his sword, is decked out in all the attributes linked to the mystical character of the trouser cult of the divinity borrowed from the East by the Roman Empire (snake, scorpion, Phrygian cap, bouffant, etc.).
Mithra, the Oriental
In Iranian, Mithra means “contract, be the god who judges, who brings prosperity and abundance to those who keep the word”. “She was venerated in very ancient times, in the Eastern world in the second millennium BC, explains one of the curators of the exhibition. Mithra the Eastern will gain the Roman world at the end of the 1st century and which will be the object of an original worship which will spread in an extremely important way in all the space of the Empire. »
The mystery lies in the origin of the cult, still unearthed by experts of all persuasions. The Belgian historian Franz Cumont (1868-1947) imagined that the cult of Mithras had been introduced into the Roman Empire by soldiers returning from campaigns in the East. Other specialists see it more as a cult “born in Asia Minor”.
In Rome, the image of Mithra refers to the cult of youth, the beardless and youthful face, the curly hair, a description which is not without evoking that of Apollo or Alexander the Great. “At Mariemont in Belgium, the exhibition broke several attendance records,” said Belgian museum director Richard Veymiers.