Norman J. Penny - pictish-mithraism.com

In pursuing the prospect of constructing an Open-Air Mithraeum in Pictland then amongst the best
people to have been engaged would be those familiar with Mithraea elsewhere – better still, nearby.
At least three Mithraea existed by Hadrian’s wall – maybe built outside the Pictland time period
under consideration but maybe in use right up until the Roman army left Britain; maybe beyond.
The Roman army apparently “pensioned off” its soldiers (and also its auxiliaries). Part of the
pensioning off was the opportunity to remain at an outpost which for someone already out-posted
for a long period could almost equate to contentedly remaining in situ. This opens up several
prospects for the ethnicity of potential builders and worshippers – they could be from other parts of
the Roman Empire but residing in Britain, “British” people who had become accustomed to the
Roman customs and adopting them (including religions) or merchants and traders maintaining an
import/export base in Britain. Contrary to what in the past has been learnt at school, the Romans
were not necessarily from Rome. In fact the British region was at times administered from beyond
Rome e.g. at times from Germany. The Roman regime, in common with the Persian ones in the first
half millennium BCE, had a habit of taking people from pacified acquisitions, placing them in their
armies then dispatching them to other parts of the Empire or potential expanded Empire. So the
prospect for people coming from places well remote from Pictland is high – and they could have
come with their belief set or a susceptibility to one that they might be sympathetic towards. From
statues around Hadrian’s Wall it is known that there were cohorts comprising Hamian archers from
Syria, Dacians from north of the Danube around the Carpathian mountains, Batavians from around
the Netherlands, Tungrians from the western Ardennes and others.
The pursuit of Mithraism allegedly went underground with Christianity becoming the Roman state
religion. Maybe this is why NE Scotland, being relatively remote geographically, would have been
considered a good location to practice Mithraism (motive and opportunity). Finally, the following of
the cult ended beyond the establishment of Christianity in Britain and beyond the establishment of
Islam in the Middle East – about the time of the 10 th Century amalgamation of the Picts and Scots.
Coding of the Symbols
A great intrigue indeed! Assuming the desire to pursue the Mithras Mystery cult, in potentially
unfamiliar territory (although that might be debatable as there is an argument that the builders and
users were “accepted” so they may not have been too unfamiliar with the locations where the
Stones were built) with a high degree of “secrecy”, then someone had to decide on the coding.
Familiarity with the symbols and their meaning in a Mithraeum seems a logical start point – this
suggests and adept rather than an initiate. Then the jump would need to be made from indoor to
outdoor Mithraeum with knowledge of the constellations and zodiac and planets as seen in the sky
rather than relying on the depiction indoors. Conversely, as an aside, whoever designed the original
indoor Mithraea must have had much knowledge of the “sky” and how to “read” it.
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