2026/06/02 by Ian S. Wilson, Matthew McCarty
Arts and Humanities · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Ancient and Medieval Archaeology Studies #Archaeology and Rock Art Studies #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1047759426100774
openalex publication_date 2026/06/02 · openalex created_date 2026/06/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/03
Abstract Contemporary accounts of Mithraism emphasize particular, shared modes of anthropogenic place-making: spaces laid out in distinctive, bench-lined arrangements, which may have been freighted with a surplus of cosmic symbolism that was actualized through the performance of ritual. Focusing on the site of Močići (Croatia), we argue that Mithraic place-making must instead be situated in a host of far more localized and material relationships that afford their own particular modes, experiences, and semiotics of worshipping the god. In the case of Močići, those relationships include local karstic geologies, particular lifeways and experiences of the landscape, and the ways that significances were woven around natural phenomena. The site encourages rethinking both contemporary conceptions of “Mithraism” and material- and place-based approaches to cult in antiquity.