Summer School on Zoroastrian Texts and Mithraic monuments in Rome

This sum­mer school, to be held in Rome in the last week of August, opens path­ways into impor­tant mon­u­ments of ancient reli­gious his­to­ry span­ning East and West. Michael Staus­berg (Uni­ver­si­ty of Bergen), Céline Redard (Uni­ver­si­ty of Stras­bourg), and Gian­fil­ip­po Ter­ri­bili (La Sapien­za Uni­ver­si­ty of Rome) will intro­duce par­tic­i­pants to tex­tu­al and mate­r­i­al mon­u­ments: texts from ancient Iran com­posed in a litur­gi­cal lan­guage (Aves­tan) and sub­ter­ranean sanc­tu­ar­ies where rit­u­al assem­blies were held in hon­or of the “for­eign” deity Mithras (with roots in Indi­an and Iran­ian reli­gions). While the Aves­tan texts, which also men­tion the deity Mithra, are until our days recit­ed by Zoroas­tri­an priests, the so-called Mys­ter­ies of Mithras have died out with the spread of Chris­tian­i­ty. In our sum­mer school, tex­tu­al stud­ies will go hand in hand with site vis­its in Rome. Wel­come to an intense learn­ing week with first-hand expo­sure to sources of ancient reli­gion!

Atten­dance is free, but places are lim­it­ed.

Appli­ca­tion dead­line: 25.4.2026

Dates: 24.8.–28.–8.2026

Venue: Det Norske Insti­tut­tet i Roma / The Nor­we­gian Insti­tute in Rome