Fahim Ennouhi in Ostia.
Fahim Ennouhi

Fahim Ennouhi is a historian of Antiquity and holds a doctorate from Ibn Tofaïl University, where he dedicated his thesis to Eastern cults in Roman North Africa, including, of course, the cult of Mithras. He teaches within the Ministry of National Education in Morocco and has also participated in several archaeological excavations and surveys, notably at Lixus and in the Larache region.

His first book, Le culte de Mithra en Afrique du Nord antique, offers an overview of known Mithraic attestations in the region. It brings together available epigraphic and archaeological documentation, reexamines inscriptions attributed to the cult, and questions the reality of Mithraism’s spread in the African provinces.

The study highlights an ultimately limited dossier: a few fragmentary inscriptions, a limited number of reliefs, and a cult presence essentially linked to military circles, with no evidence of documented or structured establishment in local communities.

• Lee el artículo íntegro en The New Mithraeum.

La producción literaria de Melibea, con obras como La bastarda, La albina del dinero, Las mujeres hablan mucho y mal o La hija de las mitangan ha supuesto un revulsivo para el panorama cultural de Guinea Ecuatorial por su valentía al abordar temas tabú en el país, como la identidad de género, la homosexualidad o los abusos de poder.

En tanto que activista ha publicado Yo no quería ser madre donde recoge testimonios desgarradores de mujeres ecuatoguineanas que son obligadas a quedarse embarazadas por su condición sexual. Además, Melibea es asesora del colectivo Somos parte del mundo que lucha por el reconocimiento de los derechos humanos del colectivo LGTB y de las mujeres en un país donde la mal llamada tradición sigue condicionando la vida de miles de personas por sus tendencias afectivas.

Precisamente por su lucha en favor de los derechos humanos, Melibea ha sido detenida en varias ocasionas por la policía de Guinea Ecuatorial. Del mismo modo, las sedes de la asociación Somos parte del mundo han sido registradas sin orden judicial tanto en Malabo como en Bata.

• Lee el artículo íntegro en La Enzina.
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Peter Mark Adams on the Sola-Busca cards back.
Andreu Abuín

We inaugurate our YouTube channel with the author, poet, essayist and friend Peter Mark Adams.

On this occasion, we talk to him about a remarkable work of Renaissance art, the Sola-Busca Tarot, in which Adams finds clues to the cult of Mithras.

Anyone familiar with the work of Peter Mark Adams might expect a meticulous, profound and engaging exploration of the Sola-Busca Tarot. And it is.

But beyond that he broadens the scope, opening the field for a deep dive into the deck’s Italian Renaissance context and the origins of Western esotericism itself.

• Lee el artículo íntegro en The New Mithraeum.

Laurent Bricault in his apartment in Toulouse.
The New Mithraeum / Andreu Abuín

A PhD in Egyptology, Laurent Bricault is a professor of Roman history at the Jean-Jaurès University in Toulouse.

Since the beginning of his academic career, this leading figure of leonine character in the best sense of the word has never ceased to accumulate knowledge and recognition. He is a member of the prestigious Institut Universitaire de France and a guest scholar at the Getty Villa in Los Angeles.

Since 1999, he has worked with the renowned Brill publishing house to organise international colloquia on isiac studies. Together with Richard Veymiers, director of the Royal Museum of Mariemont in Belgium, he runs the Bibliotheca Isiaca. He is also one of the collaborators of the international programme of Roman Provincial Coinage.

At the...

• Lee el artículo íntegro en The New Mithraeum.

Jaime Alvar in Çanakkale, Turkey.
Rosana Triviño

Jaime Alvar has set the standard with his trilogy on the cults of Mithras, Isis, Magna Mater and Atis in Hispania. His work is now essential for understanding this phenomenon in the Iberian Peninsula and, by extension, the Roman Empire.

Alvar also makes us reflect on the foundations of contemporary Spain: 'We Spaniards are the heirs of Rome, but with brutal contradictions,' he states and justifies.