Gobekli Tepe's Pillars

Equivalence of Mithraic Tauroctony and Cippus of Horus scenes

Mithraic Tauroctony (Roman, circa 0 AD, left) and Cippus of Horus scene (Egyptian, New Dynasty, 1st millennium BC and earlier)

The Mithraic Tauroctony scene (above left) has fascinated scholars for hundreds of years (see here). The origin of Mithraism and the meaning of its symbolism has proven to be a tricky problem. Early ideas centred on its origin in Persia in the 2nd or 3rd millennium BC, because of the dress-code of Mithras and because bull-slaying is a known theme of Persian Zoroastrianism (the primordial bull is slain by Ahriman, who perhaps becomes Mithras in ancient Rome).

However, more recently the astronomical interpretation of David Ulansey, an American Professor of comparative mythology at Princeton, has gained favour. He interprets the scene as a change of age, from the age of Taurus into the age of Aries. Therefore, the scene displays knowledge of precession of the equinoxes. Familiar symbols support his view, as the Tauroctony scene normally includes a serpent (interpreted as hydra) and a scorpion (obviously Scorpius, representing the autumn equinox). Accordingly, the date referenced is around 2000 BC, to within a few hundred years, when Taurus represents the spring equinox. However, to make this scheme work, Ulansey suggests the equatorial constellations, rather then the usual zodiacal constellations, are used. Therefore, Hydra represents the summer solstice. To ensure the serpent is reliably identified as the Hydra constellation, a crow (representing Corvus) is often present.

Ulansey takes the conventional view that Hipparchus discovered precession, and therefore Mithraism follows this discovery chronologically. This also influences his interpretation of Mithraism as a relatively modern Roman mystery religion born in the 1st or 2nd century BC. Accordingly, Mithras is seen as an all-powerful creator god who controls time, and he doubts the link to any earlier (e.g. Persian) religion.

While I agree with much of Ulansey's thesis, his assumption about the discovery of precession by Hipparchus, and therefore the relatively modern status of Mithraism, is now known to be incorrect. Indeed, I suspect both these earlier views of Mithraism are largely correct and can be combined, i.e. Mithraism is an adaption of a much older religion that also used precession of the equinoxes symbolically to represent a golden age circa 3000 to 2500 BC.

In fact, I have previously shown how the Cippus of Horus scene (above right) essentially describes a similar scene, or at least a similar date, using precession of the equinoxes. This scene was popular in later dynasties of Ancient Egypt. However, the Cippus of Horus scene uses zodiacal, rather than equatorial constellations, and all four of the constellations are used. Therefore, we can equate the Mithraic bull with the Egyptian crocodile (Taurus, spring) and the Mithraic serpent with the Egyptian lion (hydra/Leo, summer). The scorpion (autumn) is the same in both scenes.

Finally, the Cippus of Horus scene includes an ibex/gazelle, representing Aquarius for the winter solstice. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent symbol in the Tauroctony, unless, that is, we re-interpret the dog as a fox, which we know from Gobekli Tepe can represent the northern part of Aquarius. But this looks to be too much of a stretch in most cases.