# Religion and belief in the Roman world: what do 561 Mithras inscriptions preserve?

Choose a year to see how many dated Mithras inscriptions include it. The records preserve material traces from the Roman world, not what every person believed.

https://mariuscomper.uk/en/religion-and-belief/

- [Dobrovăț Monastery: how old are the church, wall and tower?](https://mariuscomper.uk/dobrovat-1504/en/): The church of 1503–1504, the 17th-century wall and the tower raised in 1743: three ages in a single courtyard, then a relief model showing what could be seen from the roads around. In Romanian and English.
- [Abu Simbel: the temples that moved](https://mariuscomper.uk/abu-simbel/en/): In the 1960s, two temples carved into a cliff were cut apart and rebuilt above the rising waters of Lake Nasser. The hill behind them was built too. In Romanian and English.
- [Neamț Monastery: what did the monks copy — ten dated books in 143 years?](https://mariuscomper.uk/manastirea-neamt/en/): Ten dated copies made at Neamț between 1436 and 1579, then Paisie’s school: what was copied and when, each book with its year and its proof.
- [Șumuleu Ciuc: how many kilometres on foot to the Pentecost pilgrimage](https://mariuscomper.uk/sumuleu-csiksomlyo/en/): From the western border to the valley that fills each Pentecost run 485.3 km of marked road — 20 days of walking. Type a town name: the page shows the road that remains, section by section.
- [The Magi and Mithras: what 561 stones of Mithras and his torchbearers show, year by year](https://mariuscomper.uk/cei-trei-crai/en/): It is said that the Magi were added to the story of Jesus’s birth to win over people who served Mithras. On a map of the Roman world, the Latin stones of Mithras light up in the years they could have been carved: by the year 100 none can be securely dated, and they become numerous only after 150, when the story of the Magi is already written.
- [Azizyie mosque, Tulcea: two years on one wall, 1863 and 1865](https://mariuscomper.uk/tulcea-azizyie/en/): The Azizyie mosque in Tulcea, Romania, carries two dates: the plaque says 1865, the list says 1863, the scholar gives 1861–1876. A walk along the wall, line by line.
- [How old is Romanian Christianity? What 379,734 Latin inscriptions show](https://mariuscomper.uk/crestinarea-romanilor/en/): The Bulgars, the Poles and Kievan Rus have a year of baptism; the Romanians have words inherited from Latin and the idea that the faith came with Roman soldiers. The Latin inscriptions of the empire are lights on a map that runs from AD 100 to 700. On the Danube nearly all the Christian inscriptions date from after 300, and they name soldiers no more often than the frontier’s other inscriptions do.
- [Notre-Dame de Paris: fire, restoration and contested windows](https://mariuscomper.uk/notre-dame-din-paris-2019/en/): 15 April 2019, 18:20: three distinct alarms, the spire down around 19:50, out by 09:50. Then the oaks, the organ's 115 stops, the December 2024 reopening and the 2026 dispute over six intact 1864 windows. In Romanian, English and French.
- [Dresden's Frauenkirche: the church, the ruin and a contested rebuilding](https://mariuscomper.uk/frauenkirche-din-dresda/en/): Dresden's Frauenkirche became a ruin, a memorial and then a rebuilt church. The chronology of its dated images and decisions — from the morning of 15 February 1945 to the reused stone of 1994 — shows how the meaning of the site changed.
- [Văcărești Monastery, on the same map](https://mariuscomper.uk/manastirea-vacaresti/en/): A princely foundation becomes a prison, then a demolition site: the great church falls in December 1986, the last remains in January 1987. What stays is the abandoned basin and the wetland now protected as a nature park. Slide the monastery plan over the map through 1723/24, 1865, 1984, 1989 and 2016.
- [The churches of Bucharest](https://mariuscomper.uk/bisericile-bucurestilor/en/): Between 1977 and 1987 at least 19 places of worship were pulled down in Bucharest, and between 1982 and 1988 seven churches were pushed on rails, most of them to behind blocks of flats.
- [The mine waste that buried a village church. Watch it rise, year by year, from space](https://mariuscomper.uk/geamana/en/): Geamăna, in Romania's Apuseni Mountains, buried since 1978 by the Roșia Poieni copper mine's tailings pond: 48 Landsat photographs, one a year, and terrain measured from orbit show the valley filling up past the church roof. In Romanian and English.
- [Why are Wallachia's oldest monasteries where they are?](https://mariuscomper.uk/manastirile-tarii-romanesti/en/): Drop three marks on the relief, then the charters place the monasteries attested by 1500, in documentary order. Test five explanations one by one: the passes, the Danube, the prince, Nicodim's network, the forest. In Romanian and English.
- [The church Gaudí hung from the ceiling](https://mariuscomper.uk/biserica-atarnata/en/): Gaudí designed the Colònia Güell church upside down, from string and sacks of shot. Hang the weights, turn the model over and walk into the crypt that gravity drew. In Romanian, English, Spanish and Catalan.
- [What language do you pray in, when you pray in Romanian?](https://mariuscomper.uk/liturghia-poliglota/en/): You pray in Romanian — but the words of prayer hold four strata: Latin, Greek arrived mostly via Slavonic, Slavic, and Hebrew arrived by a double route. Thirteen words with dictionary passports, a collage to hear, and a game to solve.
- [Why Romanian weekdays still carry five Roman gods](https://mariuscomper.uk/saptamana-planete/en/): Luni = Moon, marți = Mars, miercuri = Mercury, joi = Jupiter, vineri = Venus. Why the gods stand scrambled, plus Saturday, Sunday and the 321 law.
- [John's Fairies: why the June fairies answer to the Baptist's name](https://mariuscomper.uk/sanzienele-ion/en/): From SANCTUS DIES JOHANNIS, Saint John's day, to the Sânziene: the Sân- wheel with four saints (Sânziene, Sânpetru, Sântilie, Sâmedru), the three living senses — feast, flower, fairies — and the night of 23 June with bonfires, wreaths on water and the Drăgaica fair. With the etymology chain, the wheel-walk and quotes from DEX, MDA2, Șăineanu and Scriban.
- [Rusalii: how roses came to name the Holy Ghost and the fairies](https://mariuscomper.uk/rusaliile-trandafiri/en/): From ROSALIA, the Roman rose-feast on graves, to Rusalii: the debatable Slavic route, the three living senses — feast, fairy, mayfly — and the week between worlds, with the Saturday of the dead, walnut-branch Sunday, the healing călușari (UNESCO 2008) and the water rusalkas. With the ROSALIA→RUSALII etymology chain, the week-walk and quotes from DEX, DER, Șăineanu and Scriban.
- [Moș Crăciun without parents: two words, zero certain origins](https://mariuscomper.uk/mos-craciun-fara-parinti/en/): Neither moș nor Crăciun has a known origin: DEX shrugs, and the etymological dictionary lines up 18 suspects and convicts none. A cold-case file with the interactive suspect board, word/status/language-family filters, birth certificates stamped UNKNOWN and quotes from DEX, DER and Scriban.
- [Bogdaproste or bodaproste? Meaning and origin of the Romanian alms-thanks](https://mariuscomper.uk/bogdaproste/en/): Bogdaproste is the thanks said when receiving pomana, memorial alms for the dead, from Bulg. «bog da prosti», «May God forgive»; DOOM3 moved the headword to bodaproste. Meaning, norm, stress, the 1746 attestation, today's Bulgarian formula, and a receipt engine with two scenes — Rome and the pomana.
- [Every December, we sing a Roman date](https://mariuscomper.uk/colinda-calendae/en/): Colindă comes from Latin calendae, via Slavic kolenda: a Roman 1 January date, banned by synods for centuries and still sung every December.
- [How a Serbian village word became your vampire](https://mariuscomper.uk/strigoi-vs-vampir/en/): Strigoi inherits Latin through striga, while vampire is a Slavic word of disputed origin that crossed Europe inside the Austrian reports on the 1725 and 1732 exhumations and through the European press, returning to Romanian as a French and German neologism. A five-chapter map, side-by-side definitions and an eight-quotation quiz.
- [The Miorița you never learned in school](https://mariuscomper.uk/miorita-variante/en/): 1792–1969: Alecsandri's 1850 ballad is one version among hundreds. The carol printed in 1859 has no talking sheep, and at Cucueți the hero dies alone and a nun carries him home: three complete texts, side by side.
- [Egeria: a woman's pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Sinai and Edessa, 381–384](https://mariuscomper.uk/egeria/en/): Egeria, a woman from the far west of the Empire, wrote home to her friends about three years in the Holy Land. The text, found in Arezzo in 1884, on the map.
- [Everyone goes to Viscri and Biertan. There are 160 more fortified churches, and at most of them you phone for the key.](https://mariuscomper.uk/biserici-fortificate/en/): A map of Transylvania's 162 fortified churches includes the seven UNESCO villages, heritage class, published opening hours, keyholder contact and damaged buildings.
- [Releasing the house](https://mariuscomper.uk/slobodirea-casei/en/): The priest sprinkles the house. Then anyone may enter. Marian’s 1892 book on birth, read as the unlocking of the house.
- [What Isn’t Done](https://mariuscomper.uk/ce-nu-se-face/en/): Four thousand folk beliefs printed by the Romanian Academy under the name of an entire people, reconstructed from OCR and scan. One in four is a prohibition, a third of the entries with a locality attribution comes from one village, and six labels are missing from the printed numbering.
- [Wooden churches belong to the hills](https://mariuscomper.uk/biserici-de-lemn/en/): The Carpathians are usually treated as the border between two building worlds. Wooden churches ignore it: their density rises the same way on both flanks and falls where the hills end.
- [Romania's oldest monasteries are not where you would look for them](https://mariuscomper.uk/cele-mai-vechi-manastiri/en/): Seven of the eight monastic sites older than the year 1200 are in the Banat, Crișana and Transylvania. The eighth is in Dobruja. In Moldavia and Wallachia there is not one.
- [Two in Seven — the public holidays that land on a weekend](https://mariuscomper.uk/doua-din-sapte/en/): Romania writes more public holidays into law than any other EU country, seventeen of them. On average five a year land on a Saturday or a Sunday. Compare twenty-eight national calendars and see what one rule would change.
- [Painted Monasteries of Bucovina: 1–2 Day Route, Measured Distances](https://mariuscomper.uk/manastiri-pictate/en/): Voronet, Humor, Moldovita, Sucevita, Arbore: what to see at each, published hours, service times to avoid, and the optimal route with measured driving distances from Gura Humorului or Suceava.
- [Dracula: Six Places, Myth vs Record](https://mariuscomper.uk/dracula-mit-sau-realitate/en/): Is Bran worth it? Stoker never visited Romania, and the novel never names Bran. Six places graded by evidence — archive (Targoviste), disputed tradition (Snagov), late materialization (Borgo) — with a visit router.
- [The Merry Cemetery Decoded: What Săpânța's Painted Crosses Say](https://mariuscomper.uk/cimitirul-vesel/en/): Read the Romanian inscriptions on nine painted crosses from Săpânța alongside working Chinese and English translations. Each entry separates what the text says from interpretations the sources cannot confirm.
- [Romania's Folk Calendar: Mărțișor, Dragobete, and Sânziene](https://mariuscomper.uk/calendar-popular/en/): What the red-white March string and the June bathing ban are: six customs, every date sourced; the syncretism box; visitor flags for what you can see and where not to go.
- [The saint who lost his greatest battle: Stephen the Great 1457–1504](https://mariuscomper.uk/stefan-cel-mare/en/): Vaslui 1475, Valea Albă 1476, Putna 1504. Two battlefields at the same scale and the saint who reigned 47 years.
- [Beheaded on his birthday: Constantin Brâncoveanu 1688–1714](https://mariuscomper.uk/brancoveanu-1714/en/): Hurezi 1697, Mogoșoaia 1702, the 1714 scaffold. 26 years of building and the fortune that killed him, on one map.
- [Where did the 13 days go?](https://mariuscomper.uk/calendarul-1919/en/): 1 April old style = 14 April new style. Decree-Law 1053, the 13 days that never existed, a 1900–1925 converter, and the Church that kept its own time until 1924.
- [Tabula Traiana in the Danube Gorge: what it says and how it was lifted 20 metres in 1969](https://mariuscomper.uk/tabula-traiana/en/): Trajan's inscription of AD 100, word by word, and the 260-tonne block lifted 20 metres in 1969 before the Iron Gates lake.
- [You say Easter. Most of Europe says pascha.](https://mariuscomper.uk/paste-pesach/en/): Paște comes from Hebrew pesach, through Aramaic, Greek and Latin; the feast's date survived the Quartodeciman wars and Nicaea, and the hinge is a monk from Dobruja. With a working Easter computer and a quiz.
- [I, Zenovius, set up this gift](https://mariuscomper.uk/donariul-din-biertan/en/): The Biertan donarium: a 4th-century bronze tablet found in 1775 near Biertan, Romania, inscribed EGO ZENOVIVS VOTVM POSVI. Four Latin words, two of which still live in Romanian.
- [How the villager became the heathen: paganus, from villager to unbeliever](https://mariuscomper.uk/paganul/en/): Romanian păgân (heathen) comes from Latin paganus, 'villager': the DER evidence, the Romance cognates, the two theories of the change of sense, and the Christian layer from Latin.
- [The chalk-cut churches of Basarabi–Murfatlar, in 3D](https://mariuscomper.uk/basarabi-murfatlar/en/): The Basarabi–Murfatlar cave complex in Romania, in its 3D laser scan: slice the chalk block level by level and find three churches carved one beneath another a thousand years ago, their walls full of runes nobody has deciphered.
- [When did churches start speaking Romanian?: Câmpulung, 1636](https://mariuscomper.uk/prima-pisanie-romana/en/): For centuries, the story written on church walls was told in Church Slavonic. In the summer of 1636, on the freshly raised wall of the princely church in Câmpulung, the foundation story was written in Romanian. One of the first Romanian-language inscriptions.
- [Bektashi, between a spiritual centre and a proposed state](https://mariuscomper.uk/bektashi/en/): The Bektashi headquarters in Tirana exists, a diplomatic status was requested, a sovereign state is only proposed: no public act up to 2 October 2026. From Hacıbektaş to Tirana, Sarı Saltuk's tomb at Babadag and the real area: 27 acres, almost 11 hectares.
- [The Archangel's Sword](https://spada-arhanghelului.mariuscomper.uk/en/): Seven sanctuaries, a geographic legend and a line that can be measured.
- [A plough, an auger and three saints](https://mariuscomper.uk/cerul-taranului/en/): The same stars, cut differently.
- [The wall that judges](https://mariuscomper.uk/manastirea-voronet/en/): Argeș said: stone and verse. Hunedoara said: stone and story. Voroneț says it differently: the stone tells its days — 26 May, 14 September 1488 — and the wall shows the end: the 1547 Judgment, with zodiac and peoples. Climb it register by register, in 3D, then grade the legends: Daniil, the lost secret, the airplane.

## Sources

- [LIST v1.2 · Zenodo, DOI 10.5281/zenodo.10473706](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10473706)
- [Natural Earth · Admin 0, countries at 1:50m](https://www.naturalearthdata.com/downloads/50m-cultural-vectors/50m-admin-0-countries/)
- [Epigraphic Database Heidelberg](https://edh.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/)