Antiquarium di Camporosso

The Antiquarium of Camporosso presents finds from a nearby Roman mithraeum and the customs station associated with this route between Aquileia and Noricum. Its small collection includes inscriptions, cult objects and evidence of the people who worked in the Roman customs system.

Why it matters

Camporosso is identified with the Bilachinium station of the Publicum Portorium Illyrici, the imperial customs district organised around the beginning of the first century AD. The Antiquarium brings this administrative history together with the archaeology of Mithras, a cult whose adherents included soldiers, customs officers, enslaved people and freedmen.

What to notice

Finds from the mithraeum, dated between the second and fourth centuries, include a bronze bust of Luna or Selene, an image of Mithras born from the rock dedicated by Eutyches, and a statuette of Cautopates with a scorpion. Inscriptions preserve the names and roles of customs personnel, including Telesphorus and Amandus. Two later inscriptions record restoration of the mithraeum funded by Thallus. The collection also includes 32 coins dated from about 270 to the end of the fourth century, along with a fibula, lamp fragments, and ceramic and glass objects.

Context and history

Small altars, inscriptions and sculptures were discovered during work at a house in Camporosso in the late 1970s. An excavation directed by Marisa Rigoni in 1982 uncovered part of the mithraeum: a north–south hall investigated for about ten metres and an adjoining room with an altar base still in place. The museum was established in the former village dairy through a scientific project directed by the regional archaeological superintendency and is run by the Vicinia di Camporosso.