1,900-year-old lion-headed bronze discs discovered in Israel likely used in pagan burial rituals

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has published for the first time the discovery of four bronze discs unearthed in 2018 at Khirbat Ibreika, located in central Israel.

The discs, believed to have been used in the pagan burial of a “high status” individual, are decorated with lion heads – with each lion having a unique expression.

“This is a unique and rare set of finds: the carrying handle ring, which was attached – in most of the known examples from the Roman world, through the lion’s mouth – was joined in this case precisely to the disc’s vertex, at the top of the lion’s head,” explained the authors of the article, Elie Haddad and Elisheva Zwiebel.

“It seems this enabled freer and wider movement of the handles that served to lift the coffin and integrate it into a burial procession, while passing bars through the rings to better handle its transport.”

In their article, Haddad and Zwiebel discuss the symbolism of the bronze discs and their handle rings, analyzing them in the light of the religious iconography of the region during that period.

“In Greek and Roman mythology, the lion was known as guardian of fountains, gates, palaces, cemeteries and temples,” they wrote, adding that lions “were frequently presented as attributes of kings and gods.”

They further noted that lion symbolism was important in the iconography of the Roman mystery religion of Mithras.

Mithraism was popular among Romans during the period to which the discovered bronze discs have been dated.

Statues of lion-headed men, entwined by serpents, have been found in Mithraic temples across the globe, and are sometimes identified by scholars as Aion, a deity associated with Mithraism, Orphism and the Dionysian Mysteries.

Aion, Haddad and Zwiebel wrote, has been depicted in ancient art as holding a wheel or a zodiac. Depictions of him often include serpentine imagery.

“Although the exact identity of the [Mithraic] lion-headed figure is debated among scholars, it is largely agreed that the god is associated with time and seasonal change,” they explained.

They concluded that the discovered ring handles may not be merely functional, but religiously significant.

“Based on the depiction of Aion in ancient art, we may cautiously suggest that the ring handle above the lion’s head represented the wheel of the zodiac, the wheel of life.”

They emphasized, however, that “they do not have enough evidence to associate the lions to a particular religion.”