The ‘City of Darkness’ and ‘The Twin Riders’ in the Mithraeum of Hawarte (Syria)

Abstract

Summary Three pictorial scenes represented on the walls of the newly discovered Mithraeum in Hawarte (Syria) are deeply rooted in the Middle-Iranian religious world. The pictures of the ‘City of Darkness’, and of ‘The Twin Riders’, as well as that of ‘The Lion and the Demons’, can only be explained by their evident Iranic background. Some of these iconographies are not limited to the Syrian area but are spread all around the Roman world, until London and Vienne-sur-Rhône. Moreover, a possible connection with a heterodox doctrine concerning the post-mortem vehiculated by the Pseudo-Macarius is proposed in this contribution.