Temple of Mithras, London

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The present-day location of the temple foundations.

The Temple of Mithras, Walbrook, perhaps the most famous of all twentieth-century Roman discoveries in the City of London, was discovered in Walbrook, a street in the City of London, during rebuilding work in 1954.

The site was excavated by W. F. Grimes, director of the Museum of London. The temple, initially hoped to have been an early Christian church, was built in the mid-3rd century and dedicated to Mithras or perhaps jointly to several deities popular among Roman soldiers. Then it was rededicated, probably to Bacchus, in the early fourth century. Found within the temple where they had been carefully buried at the time of its rededication were finely-detailed third-century white marble likenesses of Minerva, Mercury the guide of the souls of the dead, and the syncretic gods Mithras and Serapis, imported from Italy. There were several coarser locally-made clay figurines of Venus, combing her hair. The artefacts recovered were put on display in the Museum of London.

Among the sculptures the archaeologists found was a head of Mithras himself, recognizable from his Phrygian cap. The base of the head is tapered to fit a torso, which was not preserved. Another discovery was a marble relief, 0.53 m, of Mithras in the act of killing the astral bull, the Tauroctony that was as central to Mithraism as the Crucifixion is to Christianity. On it Mithras is accompanied by the two small figures of the torch-bearing celestial twins of Light and Darkness, Cautes and Cautopates, within the cosmic annual wheel of the zodiac. At the top left, outside the wheel, Sol–Helios ascends the heavens in his biga; at top right Luna descends in her chariot. The heads of two wind-gods, Boreas and Zephyros, are in the bottom corners. It bears the inscription

VLPIVS SILVANVS FACTVS ARAVSIONE EMERITVS LEG II AVG VOTVM SOLVIT

which may be translated "Ulpius Silvanus, veteran soldier of the Second Augustan Legion, in fulfillment of a vow, makes this altar [as the result of] a vision" [1] or "Ulpius Silvanus, veteran of the Second Legion Augusta, fulfilled his vow having become (a Mithraist) at Orange" [University of Edinburgh, Classics Department, teaching collection] (Collingwood and Wright 1965, 3).

Another view of the temple foundations.

Nearby were buried heads of the Roman goddess Minerva and a finely-detailed bearded head of Serapis, Jupiter-like in his features but securely recognizable by the grain-basket, the modius, upon his head, a token of resurrection.

An inscription dateable 307–310 CE at the site

PRO SALVTE D N CCCC ET NOB CAES DEO MITHRAE ET SOLI INVICTO AB ORIENTE AD OCCIDENTEM

may be translated "For the Salvation of our lords the four emperors and the noble Caesar, to the god Mithras, the Invincible Sun from the east to the west" (Collingwood and Wright 1965, 4) [2].

The temple when it was originally built, would have stood on the east bank of the now covered-over river Walbrook, a key freshwater source in Roman Londinium. Nearby, in its former streambed, a small square hammered lead sheet was found, on which an enemy of someone named Martia Martina had inscribed her name backwards and thrown the token into the stream, in a traditional Celtic way of reaching the gods that has preserved metal tokens in rivers throughout Celtic Europe, from the swords at La Tène to Roman times. (Compare wishing well.)

Due to the necessity of building over the site, the whole site was uprooted and moved down the road to Temple Court, Queen Victoria Street, London EC4, where the remains of the temple foundations have been reassembled for display to the public.

Though the present location is at grade, the original Mithraeum was built partly underground, recalling the cave of Mithras where the Mithraic epiphany took place.

The temple foundations are very close to other important sites in the city of London including the historic London Stone, the Bank of England and London Wall.

An interim report on the excavation included in W.F. Grimes, The Excavation of Roman and Mediaeval London Grimes (1968) was superseded by John Shepherd, The Temple of Mithras, Walbrook (an English Heritage monograph).