A massive altar dedicated to an eastern cult deity has emerged during excavations of a Roman fort in northern England. Weighing 1.5 tons, the four-foot high ornately carved stone relic, was unearthed at the Roman fort of Vindolanda, which was built by order of the Emperor Hadrian between 122-30 A.D.
The Romans built the defensive wall across the north of Britain from Carlisle to Newcastle-on-Tyne, to keep out invading armies from what is now Scotland.
“What should have been part of the rampart mound near to the north gate of the fort has turned out to be an amazing religious shrine,” said archaeologist Andrew Birley. A jar and a shallow dish is depicted on one side of the altar, while the other side shows a god-like figure standing on the back of a bull, with a thunderbolt in one hand and a battle axe in the other.
Romans called this god Juppiter Dolichenus, but it was originally an ancient weather god, known to the Semitic peoples of the Middle East as Hadad and to the Hittites as Teshab.
Originally worshiped as a weather god on a hilltop close to the small town of Doliche (what is now the modern city of Duluk in southern Turkey) Juppiter of Doliche began attracting Roman worshipers by the early second century AD. From then on, the cult of Dolichenus took off and spread all over the Roman empire.
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looks good
what’s mysterious? looks rather mithraic to me.
They def. did do some nice work on stone back then already .. I wonder why they think it is an altar.
Not at all surprised they needed a weather god at Vindolanda, a chilly windswept place in my experience albeit a rather beautiful location.
Very interesting. I went to do some more research and found some interesting info on the Hittites and Teshub here http://www.maravot.com/Hittite_Treaties.html
Pic looks a bit odd to me.