Mithras sanctuary (Gimmeldingen)
| Mithras sanctuary | ||
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 Originals of the stone monuments found (in the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer), in the middle the Mithras cult image |
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| Data | ||
| place | Neustadt an der Weinstrasse | |
| Client | Materninius Faustinus | |
| Construction year | 325 | |
| demolition | before 1400 | |
| Coordinates | 49 ° 22 '26.2 " N , 8 ° 9' 26.2" E | |
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The Mithras sanctuary in the district Gimmeldingen the Palatinate town of Neustadt an der Weinstraße ( Rhineland-Palatinate ) was a Mithraeum , one the God Mithras ordained Roman temple . With the inscription dating to the year 325 AD, it is the latest dated Mithraeum. Because the temple area was built over with a Christian church in the Middle Ages , only meager remains have been preserved.
Geographical location
The place of worship was in the area of the later village of Lobloch , which opened up in 1751 in the larger neighboring village of Gimmeldingen; In 1969 Gimmeldingen was incorporated into Neustadt.
The temple grounds at 166 m above sea level. NHN occupied a southern slope that extends north of the Mußbach floodplain . It is now bordered by two streets that run parallel from east to west; the Loblocher road below and the Kurpfalzstraße above have a level difference of about 10 m (161 to 171 m ) and are connected on the eastern edge of the terrain by a pedestrian staircase.
Building history
On the southern slope described, the Roman Materninius Faustinus had the temple consecrated on January 23, 325 AD in honor of the god Mithras. Nothing is known about the further fate of the sanctuary. After it had either become ruinous over time or was deliberately destroyed, a predecessor of today's Nikolauskirche was built on the ruins during the Romanesque era , the current church building then in the high Gothic period shortly after 1400.
In 1926 construction work took place west of the Nikolauskirche. The foundations of the temple were found, as well as a stone relief image showing tauroctony , the ritual sacrifice of a bull , and four consecration altars. The finds from the Mithraeum are in the Historical Museum of the Palatinate in Speyer , a replica of the cult relief from the light sandstone of the nearby low mountain range is embedded in a boundary wall on Loblocher Straße, a few meters to the left of the church entrance.
According to the inscription in the Historical Museum of the Palatinate, it is the youngest Mithras sanctuary to be discovered in the Roman Empire.
literature
- Helmut Bernhard : Neustadt-Gimmeldingen, NW, Mithraeum . In: Heinz Cüppers (Hrsg.): The Romans in Rhineland-Palatinate . 3. Edition. Reprint: Nikol Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2005, ISBN 978-3-933203-60-1 , p. 496-497 .
- Richard Petrovszky among others: Reliefs of the mithraum of Neustadt-Gimmeldingen (325 AD) . In: Meinrad Maria Grewenig (Ed.): Die Römerzeit . Historical Museum of the Palatinate, Stuttgart 1994, p. 87 .
- Elmar Schwertheim : The monuments of oriental deities in Roman Germany . Brill, Leiden 1974, p. 179-183 .
- Alfred Sitzmann: Lobloch - guide through the local history from the beginning to the union with Gimmeldingen . Reprint 7th Historical Association, Neustadt District Group, Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 1990.
- Alfred Sitzmann: Lobloch - local history in short version . In: Reinhold Schneider, Alfred Sitzmann (ed.): Neustadt-Gimmeldingen . Gimmeldingen - Chronicle of a wine village. Gimmeldingen local administration, Neustadt an der Weinstrasse 1996, p. 40-45 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Map service of the landscape information system of the Rhineland-Palatinate Nature Conservation Administration (LANIS map) ( notes )
- ^ Hermann Finke: New inscriptions . In: Report of the Roman-Germanic Commission . No. 17 , 1927, pp. 163-167 .