Associated roles
Covenant and religious order
Historical context
Mithra appears in Iranian religious literature and later royal contexts. Similarity of names with Roman Mithras has inspired extensive scholarship, but direct equivalence between all associated practices is disputed.
What survives in the evidence?
Iranian textual traditions, inscriptions and comparative religious scholarship form the main evidence.
What remains uncertain?
Roman Mithraic imagery cannot simply be used to reconstruct ancient Iranian worship.