Iconographic Studies On The Mithraic Images Uncovered In Sogdian Sites And Western Regions Of China

The worship of Mithra originated from the ancient Aryan tribes,and with the tribes’ migration,the worship of Mithra was introduced to central and western Asia.Early Mithraism had no specific image,but shreds of evidence of worship can be found in the historical documents of the ancient Aryans and Indians,and later with the war,the civilizations across Eurasia began to collide and establish contact.Because of the communication between different cultures,the iconography of Mithra emerged in this area.At this point,the images of Mithra,starting from the epicenter—Iranian world,expanded to the east and the west.On the one hand,after Mithraic images were introduced to the Romans,the influence of Zoroastrianism had worn off,leaving the images to evolve independently.On the other hand,the iconography of Mithra was inherited by the Sogdians on the east side,and through them Mithraic images had traveled to the western border of medieval China along the Silk Road.The purpose of this research is to clarify the origin and the spreading path of Mithraic iconography and contribute to the study by providing some references for its identification.Because of the complexity of Mithraism,this dissertation will examine the iconography with a comprehensive method.In literature research,the carries of its kind collected for this dissertation can be divided into mainly two categories,that is,textual documents and image documents.As to the first kind,this dissertation will use the method of literary analysis to classify the staple of each textual document and strictly select the paragraphs related to the topic of this dissertation,in order to support the point of view of this study.As to the latter one,this study will use the usual method for art theory research—image analysis,to classify the image documents by their artistic features and compare differences of the Mithraic images.In the part of theoretical research,this study will use the Iconography Study by Panofsky,Form and Style Study by Heinrich Wolfflin,preformed schemata theory by Gombrich,typology,case analysis,semiotics,and other theories together to analyze the content and form of Mithraic images in different levels.The study will also compare the variation of the image’s changing process,and analyze the cultural connotation of the image symbols in combination with the historical background of each period.The Mithraic image is a cultural symbol across Eurasia,carrying the anthropomorphic imagination of the sun for people with different cultural backgrounds.It is inevitable to clarify the development process of mithra images and summarize their propagation paths to study the mithra images in the Sigdian regions and the western regions of China.