File:2024-09-04 London Mithraeum - 16.jpg

English: The Cult of Mithras, was a Roman mystery religion centered on the god Mithras. Although inspired by Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity (yazata) Mithra, the Roman Mithras was linked to a new and distinctive imagery.

In every Mithraeum the centerpiece was a representation of Mithras killing a sacred bull, an act called the tauroctony.

The London Mithraeum, also known as the Temple of Mithras, Walbrook, is a Roman Mithraeum that was discovered in Walbrook, a street in the City of London, during a building's construction in 1954. The Roman temple, when it was originally built, would have stood on the east bank of the now covered-over River Walbrook, a key freshwater source in Roman Londinium. Nearby, in its former streambed, a small square hammered lead sheet was found, on which an enemy of someone named Martia Martina had inscribed her name backwards and thrown the token into the stream, in a traditional Celtic way of reaching the gods that has preserved metal tokens in rivers throughout Celtic Europe, from the swords at La Tène to Roman times (compare wishing well.) The temple foundations are very close to other important sites in the city of London including the historic London Stone, the Bank of England and London Wall. The original Mithraeum was built partly underground, recalling the cave of Mithras where the Mithraic epiphany took place. The temple site was uncovered in September 1954 during excavation work for the construction of Bucklersbury House, a 14-storey modernist office block to house Legal & General. As a compromise between redesigning the new building and abandoning the archaeological site, the ruin was dismantled and moved 100 metres to Temple Court, Queen Victoria Street, where in 1962 the foundations were reassembled at street level for an open-air public display. In 2007 plans were drawn up to return the Mithraeum to its original location, following the demolition of Bucklersbury House and four other buildings in the block for the planned creation of a new Walbrook Square development. The Walbrook Square project was purchased by the Bloomberg company in 2010, which decided to restore the Mithraeum to its original site as part of their new European headquarters. The new site is 7 metres (23 ft) below the modern street level, as part of an exhibition space beneath the Bloomberg building. The temple was moved a little west of its original position to preserve parts of the walls that were not uncovered in 1952–54 and are too fragile to display today.

The ruins are reconstructed as they appeared at the end of the excavation in October 1954, reflecting the first building phase of around AD 240 without any later Roman additions to the site. A large majority of the stones and bricks are original. The wood, render and lime mortar are new, but based on mortar samples from contemporary Roman London structures. The temple is displayed with a selection of artefacts found on the site.