The present day location of the temple foundations.
Another view of the temple foundations.
The Temple of Mithras was discovered on Walbrook Street, a street in the city of London, England, during rebuilding work after World War 2. The site was excavated and the artefacts recovered were put on display in the Museum of London. Due to the necessity of building over the site, the whole site was uprooted and moved down the road to Queen Victoria Street, London EC4, where the remains of the temple (the foundations) are on display to the public.
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 the London Wall.
The temple dedicated to the ancient god Mithras when originally built would have stood on the bank of the now 'covered over' river Walbrook, a key freshwater source in ancient Roman Londinium.
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.
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.
Mithraic observances differed from traditional paganism in that services were held communally, followers sitting on benches either side of a narrow nave leading to an altar.
As befits a religion springing from the slaying of a bull, sacrifices were common in mithraic observance, as were shared meals of wine and bread, particularly on the festival of the 25th of December.
One final note; the form of temple used by mithraism is the fore-runner of the traditional Christian church, with aisles flanking a long nave leading to an altar and an apse.
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