The Cognitive Route of "Star Talk": The Scene of Tauroctony as a System of Signs

This article investigates the possible ways in which Mithraists perceivedthe major categories of space and time in their ritual context. Merleau-Ponty’sapproach to the perception of space offers an appropriate theoretical framework forunderstanding how initiates used to perceive and experience the sacred space of the mithraeum. Further, the Lakoff and Johnson approach to the metaphorizationand conventional conceptions of time is applied illustrating the way in whichthe initiates into the mithraic mysteries perceived and conceptualized time. Inparticular, it is suggested that conventional metaphorical mappings, imbuing theconceptual systems of Mithraists, functioned as a means of conceptualization of the initiatory experience in relation to the perception of space and time.