A New World Monument to Mithras - Old News documentary

(1998:3). Ulansey (1989:104, 98) reports something quite similar is portrayed in some
Mithraea. The sun god Helios is shown kneeling before Mithras indicating he is paying
homage to
the greater god. This agrees with the concept observed by Malville and suggests that
the sun’s involvement at the three sites reported here is more of a joining with the
people in the worship of the god pictured on the rock. “At the time of Surya puja the sun
is in a direct line-of-sight with the god, Surya and Shiva are viewing each other, and
something powerful and mysterious is occurring at an entirely different level from that of
human experience. A living geometry is established wherein sight-lines connect
multiple realms of the universe: individual, temple, sun and god.” (Malville, 1998:7). We
don’t know how much this frame of mind was shared by their Indo-European cousins,
but if the closeness of the parallels in language, meanings, and mythology to India and
Old World Mithraism is any indication, it is quite possible that worshippers at the Anubis
Caves held a similar belief. This would make the sun not just a tool used to mark an
alignment, but an active participant, together with the people, in the worship of the god
on the rock, and effectively uniting and focusing the whole of the macrocosm in that
moment of worship.
Figure 13. As the shadowy knob moves toward the edge of the inscribed sun, located at the lower right of the
photo, The head of the sun god mimics the action of the real sun. As the orb of the real sun touches the mesa on
the horizon, the chin of the sun god touches the edge of the shadow. As the last ray of sun drops below the edge of
the mesa the head of the sun god is obscured. At the same time the shadow’s Thumb Pointer or knob fills the edge
of the inscribed sun at the moment of sunset. This only happens on the equinox.
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