CIMRM 851 - Other finds including iron altar shovel. Carrawburgh, Britain.

From: TW Museums. A selection of Carrawburgh finds are on display. These include a portion of the wattle and daub, made by a woven lattice of wooden strips being daubed with a sticky material (usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw). Below is an iron shovel which would have been used by Lion-grade members to tend the sacred flame. Full size image

By TW Museums. Samian ware moratorium decorated with a lion motif. Most likely used in ritual libations by members of the Lion class.

A few objects found at Carrowbrough Mithraeum, now in the @GNM_Hancock. By Lynn Bridgett‏ @OULass 14 Nov 2017, from Twitter.

Bronze bell found in the Mithraeum. From Twitter. By Pete Savin.

From the source site, by Flora M. Kirk:

Several mithraea have been found in forts along Hadrian’s Wall, including Rudchester, Housesteads, and Carrawburgh, demonstrating the importance of Mithras to the garrisons. These shrines have yielded artefacts revealing how Mithras was worshipped in the North, several of which are on display in the Great North Museum: Hancock today. Carrawburgh Mithraeum is a particularly bountiful site, as it was flooded by an encroaching bog. The oxygen-lacking environment preserved the organic remains left in the abandoned temple, including a bowl of Mediterranean pine-cones, and wattle-and-daub seats. The origin of the pine-cones indicates that they had been brought over specifically for rituals.
Also found in Carrawburgh, a Samian ware moratorium decorated with lions might tells us that the soldiers also followed the Mithraic degrees of initiation. The levels were as such, in ascending order: Raven, Bridegroom, Soldier, Lion, Persian, Sun-runner, and Father. As this was a mystery cult passed orally, not much is known of the degrees, except that they are mentioned on inscriptions outside mithraea and sometimes appear in decorations.

CIMRM entry

851.
From the other finds, for an extensive report of which we refer to the publication of Richmond-Gillam, 62ff, we mention here:
1) A number of vessels, which "were evidently part of the furnishings of the Mithraeum. Some were containers for votive offerings, others were found near where they would seem to have been used in sacred ceremonies" (cups; cooking-pots; platters; mortaria; jars).
2) Iron objects: altar-shovel (cf. No. 480, 4), the bowl of which "contains some carbonaceous material, which has the properties of pine-cone charcoal"; thatch hook; mounting; candlestick (cf. No. 482, 6; 8).
3) Skulls and bones of domestic fowl from a ritual deposit below the altars of Period III. From the ante-room (Phase IIA) and from the nave(Period III) bones of ox, sheep or goat and pig (cf. No. 481).
4) "The make-up of the pavement in front of the altars contained an illegible denarius of the Severan age; on the flooring itself lay slightly worn coins of Victorinus ·(A.D. 268-270), Claudius II (A.D. 268-270) and Tetricus (A.D. 270-273) and a fresh follis of Maximianus I (296-308). The most important coin is the last, which associates this reconstruction with the third structural period on Hadrian's Wall, dated to A.D. 297-367. During the earliest part of this period the worn third-century radiate coins were still circulating in abundance. But the total absence of Constantinian issues suggests that the Mithraeum did not remain in use far into the century."