Two exceptionally rare and beautifully carved Mithraic altars found in Inveresk, East Lothian, Scotland, are going on display for the first time. They are not just the only Roman altars ever found in Scotland, but are among the finest examples of Roman sculpture in Roman Britain. They are also uniquely early in date, having been made in 140s A.D. during Antoninus Pius’ reoccupation of southern Scotland, whereas most other archaeological materials related to the worship of Mithras in Britannia date to the 3rd century.

The altars were unearthed in 2010. Inveresk was the site of a fort on the Antonine Wall and a bustling town grew around the military base. It was also home to the northernmost temple to Mithras in the Roman Empire, and the two altars were the focal points of the temple, which would have been an underground space, dark and windowless, resembling or even built into a natural cave. The altars were found broken in large fragments, and required extensive conservation work so they have never before been placed on public view.

One of the altars is dedicated to Mithras himself and bears the inscription “DAEO / INVICT· MY / C · CAS ·/ FLA” meaning “to the invincible god Mithras” followed by the abbreviated name of the man who erected the altar, probably Gaius Cassius Flavianus, likely the legionary centurion commander of the fort. The capital is finely carved with leaves and flowers over a turned rope border, and topped with two scrolls on each end. The center top features a raven, which may have been one of a pair but the spot where the other would have been is damaged. Ravens played an important role in Mithraic mythology as the messengers from the sun god Sol Invictus to Mithras. The sides of the altar are decorated with relief carvings of other Mithraic iconography, including a griffin and a patera on one side, and a lyre, plectrum, a lyre and a jug.

The second altar is dedicated by the same centurion to the god Sol himself. The face of the god was carved on the front of the solid stone altar in high relief, but then the center of the stone block was hollowed out from behind and the rays around the sun god’s head, his eyes and mouth were punched through to make them cutouts. His chin was also punched through, although that was by mistake. It was later rebuilt in plaster, but that plaster is now missing exposing the cleft. The altar would have been illuminated from behind, and in the dark, cave-like interior of the Mithraeum, the eyes, mouth and rays of the solar crown would have glowed brightly. On the capital of the altar, female personifications of the four seasons are depicted in relief, representing the passage of time.

There were rare surviving traces of the original polychrome paint visible on the altars when they were first unearthed. Conservators found more evidence of the color accents when examining the surface with ultraviolet light. They didn’t find enough to make a complete map of how the altar were painted, but they were able to clarify areas with red and blue outlines.

The new exhibition, Roman Scotland: Life on the Edge of Empire, runs from November 14th 2026 through April 28th, 2027, and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. It focuses on Rome’s attempts to conquer Scotland, how it was supplied and supported from the core of the Empire, the impact on the local population and the long-term effects of the occupation.

Dr Fraser Hunter, Principal Curator of Prehistory and Roman Archaeology at National Museums Scotland said:

“These stunning altars really bring the beliefs of the Roman frontier to life. The quality of the carving, traces of paint and dramatic lighting effects show they were impressive and expensive monuments. The cult of Mithras represented the triumph of good over evil and gave soldiers a sense that there was a purpose to their world and a life after death.[…]”

The remains of a monumental hall belonging to a 4th-century episcopal palace have been discovered at Ostia Antica, Rome’s ancient port town. The base of the structure is eight by 20 meters (ca. 26 by 65 feet) and the walls were an estimated eight meters high. This is an extraordinarily large space, and it was richly decorated with mosaic floors and marble panels. It is one of the oldest Christian complexes ever discovered the environs of Rome, and its rich decoration and expansive facilities are on a scale previously unknown in the Constantinian period.

The archaeological remains of the 1,700-year-old structure lay hidden just inches below the topsoil, scraped and dislodged but not severely damaged by centuries of agricultural activity just above it. In fact, farming helped preserve the remains.

Ultimately, it was fortunate that the farmers continued to use the land until the Ostia Antica Archaeological Park near Rome was established. “Here, no buildings interfere with our excavations – we hardly have to take graves or anything like that into consideration,” says Prof. Dr. Sabine Feist of the Department of Christian Archaeology at the University of Bonn. A favorable situation for research – and not only for that reason: “We know of other churches from this early period, but these were completely altered in the Middle Ages.” That didn’t happen here either.

The newly-discovered structure is adjacent to a monumental church complex discovered by geophysical surveys in 1996 and excavated in 2023-4. The church was built around 330 A.D., late in the reign of Constantine (306-337 A.D.) on the remains of a Roman insula (apartment building). Measuring about 50 by 80 meters, the church complex covered 4,000 square feet and included am adjacent bishop’s residence.

For such an elaborate complex to have been built when Christians had only recently been granted legal rights (Edict of Milan, 313 A.D.) and freedom of worship is evidence of a well-organized Church apparatus, capable of emerging from the penumbra of private and literal underground spaces straight into sophisticated, large-scale architectural developments.

The Bishop of Ostia was an important church leader in the Early Church. He held the position of Cardinal Dean, charged with convening the conclave of cardinals to elect a new pontiff after the death of a Pope. The exact location of his titular church and residence were unknown until the 2023-4 excavation confirmed the identity of the building complex.

An excavation at the Nuragic site of Ruinas in Sardinia has unearthed a Phoenician scarab seal, produced 2,700 years ago in what is now Lebanon. The scarab is made of steatite stone and has a flat side engraved with hieroglyphic-like symbols.

The scarab, currently undergoing a delicate conservation process and a battery of non-invasive diagnostic analyses in the laboratories of the Archaeological Superintendency, presents a morphology well known in the glyptic tradition of the ancient Near East. Its surface, precisely worked in soft but durable steatite, shows incisions of hieroglyphic characters that will be the subject of detailed decipherment once the stabilization work has been completed.

According to the conventions of the time, these objects fulfilled a dual practical and symbolic function: they served as protective amulets, frequently worn around the neck, and acted as seals of authority or property, whose impression in clay or wax was unique and unrepeatable given the exclusive design of each piece, which explains the variability that exists among the thousands of known scarabs.

Phoenicians established several coastal settlements on Sardinia, part of their extensive trade network of colonies and trading posts that spanned the whole Mediterranean between the 9th and 6th centuries B.C. The scarab, however, was found in the deep rugged interior of the island occupied by the Ilienses, a Nuragic people credited by ancient sources as the oldest population on Sardinia, inhabiting the interior since the Bronze Age.

A number of artifacts that had to have been imported from long distances have been discovered in Ilienses territory, including pottery from Mycenaean Greece and oxhide-shaped copper ingots believed to have produced in Cyprus. In return, characteristic Iliense grey pottery dating to between the 14th and 13th centuries B.C. has been found in the Minoan palace of Knossos in Crete.

For some scholars, such as the archaeologist Giovanni Ugas, the Ilienses represented the most important population of nuragic Sardinia and could be directly or indirectly related to the Shardana, one of the so-called Sea Peoples who appear in Egyptian records as mercenaries and adversaries of the pharaohs.

The scarab of Ruinas thus fits into a pattern of contacts that can no longer be described as sporadic or merely incidental. Its Phoenician provenance adds a new layer of complexity to the map of interactions, showing that the nuragic communities of Barbagia maintained links with multiple cultural centers of the eastern Mediterranean, not only with the Aegean-Mycenaean world.

The piece is a personal object, a movable good of value that traveled more than two thousand kilometers by sea and land, crossing cultural borders, until ending its useful life in a mountain village of inland Sardinia. Its presence materializes the commercial networks, prestige flows, and perhaps the movements of specialized individuals (artisans, merchants, smiths) who connected the Levant with the insular West.