The London Mithraeum

This was the highlight of the week!

Back in the 1950s, an excavation of a bomb site unearthed a Roman temple that had people queuing round the block to see it. It was only near the end of the dig that the archaeologists found the conclusive evidence that it was a Temple of Mithras.
The Temple was reconstructed nearby, and so things remained for many years.
Then a company called Bloomberg acquired the site to build a new office block, and they offered to put the Temple back in its original position as part of the rebuilding work. As the Temple was discovered 7 metres under the present ground level, this was not as easy as it sounds. Also, some of the Temple was discovered to be still in situ, so the reconstruction is actually slightly to the west.

They have done a magnificent job, in consultation with a team from the Museum of London. They also conducted an archaeological dig of their own, between 2010 and 2014, discovering many artefacts that are usually not preserved, but survived here because of the marshy nature of the ground.
And all this is open to the public for free (except on Mondays). When the Temple first opened, it was necessary to book, but now you can just turn up, and friendly staff are there to help you.

The top layer has a display of architecture, and beyond that a cabinet of finds from the site beneath our feet. Anyone who wanted could look at a touch-screen device to show what the artefacts were, but I always feel this is cheating slightly. So we lingered by the writing tablets, and sandals, and the merchant's scales, and the piece of door (!) and the pottery for a while, and then we went down the stairs to the next level (there's a lift, too, I think). The black marble walls are inscribed with the ground levels over the centuries, such as at the time of the Great Fire (which destroyed everything above), and the date (1505) that Thomas More moved into a house on this site.
The room downstairs is dim, with pictures being projected on the walls along with a commentary spoken by Joanna Lumley. There are also three plinths, each with information about the cult of Mithras, the Temple itself, and the head of Mithras that was found in 1954. You have to wait here for a little while (and there are also seats) because visitors are only let into the Mithraeum itself every 20 minutes.
I knew some of the information, but was surprised by the strong links between the cult of Mithras and astrology.
And then, the Mithraeum itself.
There is a sound and light show which is very effective, with voices speaking Latin and mist. Then the lights go up and you can examine the ruins more closely. There's a walkway right around the outside, and also over the part of the Temple nearest the door. There's a central aisle, with 7 pillars down each side, and between the pillars and the walls a narrower space where the congregation sat. At the top end there's a Perspex copy of the altar slab, showing Mithras slaying the bull (or at least waving a dagger around in the general area of the bull's throat - opinion is divided about whether he's actually killing it or not).
There's also a square well in one corner.
No-one is really sure what went on in the Temple, because it was a mystery cult, and nothing was written down - but we do know it was all-male, and popular with soldiers. The temples that have been discovered are also rather too small to get a bull inside, so there probably wasn't any ritual sacrifice involved in the worship. The London Mithraeum is actually larger than average - about 100 temples have been discovered across the Roman Empire. This one is also oriented towards the East, like a Christian church.

It was a ridiculously exciting experience for me. I first found out about Mithras when I read The Eagle of the Ninth, aged 12. Rosemary Sutcliff would have been drawing on recent news stories to write the scenes inside the temple. So along with my archaeological knowledge, I was sitting in the dark with Marcus Flavius Aquila, in his Raven mask, in the flickering torch light.