CIMRM 11 - Terracotta plaque, Panticapaeum, Crimea

This is the first of the five Kerch terracottas, of which only two are listed in the CIMRM.

See also E. Will, , p.531 n.15: "The Mithra-Attis of Panticapaeum (cf. Blavatsky-Kochelenko, "Culte de Mithra sur la côte sept. de la mere Noire" (EPRO 8), p.14, fig.) represents neither Mithra nor Attis (it is of Eros in an oriental costume, cf. "Relief culturel", p.203, n.1) and whose hellenistic date is by no means certain. - The cult of the mysteries penetrated the Crimea, like others, in the imperial period, cf. the monuments of Ai-Todor, l.c., p. 22, fig. 11a and b.

CIMRM entry

PANTIKAPAION 11. Tablet of terracotta. Together with the following No. from a grave at Glinitschtsche, Kertsch. Formerly at Leningrad, Ermitage, dep. Kertsch No. 893d; actually Museum Odessa (H. 0.139 Br. 0.105). Stark, Mithrassteine Dormagen, 18 and Pl. III; MMM II 19lf No. 5 and fig. 17; Derewitzky, Odessa 10f with Pl. V, 1; Saxl, Mithras, 13 and fig. 40. See fig. 2. Mithras dressed in a pair of trousers and a jacket, leaving the stomach and genitals uncovered, keeps a buffalo-like bull under control with one knee, grasping one of its horns with the l.h. In his lifted r.h. he held the knife, which has got lost. On the reverse there is a triangular fire.hole.