Мистические культы в античной Тире
Mystic Cults in Ancient Classical Tyra

Summary/Abstract: The article is an attempt to generalize and study mystical cults in Classical Ancient Tyra based on archaeological evidence from its territory. The mystical cults included secret religious rites and mysteries practiced by the adepts of both Greek and Oriental cults (from Asia Minor, Syria, Persia and Egypt). These included cults of the following deities: Demeter and Cora-Persephone (the Eleusinian mysteries), Dionysus (the Orphic Dionysus Zagreus and Eleusinian Iacchos-Dionysus), Cybele (the Magna Mother of gods with the center in Pessinunt, also known as Aphrodite the Syrian) and Attis (her deified minister of religion), Isis, Osiris and Serapes (with the center in the Egyptian Alexandria) and Mithra Taurochton (spread from Persia across the Roman Empire). Based on the analysis of records (epigraphic inscriptions, sculpture, coroplastics and glyptics) we may infer existence of mystical cults in Tyra during the Hellenistic and Roman times. Some temples of these deities seem to have existed in themenos on the territory of this polis.

• Details
• Contents