Altar Dedicated to Mercury

Illustration

by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin
published on 30 November 2015

The God Mercury was one of the Dii Consentes (12 major deities in the Pantheon of ancient Rome; 6 gods and 6 goddesses). Mercury was the god of financial gain, commerce, messages, and travelers. Some altars are official offerings by military units. The inscriptions on this altar read "To the god Mercury; soldiers of the 6th Legion, Victorious, Dutiful, and Loyal; set up this shrine and statuette; citizens of Italy and Noricum; gladly, willingly, and deservedly fulfilled their vow." From Castlecary, Scotland, 2nd century CE. (National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK)

About the Author

Associate Professor of Neurology and lover of the Cradle of Civilization, Mesopotamia. I'm very interested in Mesopotamian history and always try to take photos of archaeological sites and artifacts in museums, both in Iraq and around the world.

License

Uploaded by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin, published on 30 November 2015 under the following license: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.

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