A Lead Danubian Rider Plaque

Abstract

A small lead relief in the hands of a British collector can be identified as belonging to the Danubian Rider cult, so called because the names of deities associated with this Roman‐period religion are unknown and artefacts are identified by a pair of horsemen flanking a female deity and accompanied by other distinctive iconographic elements. This example, of unknown origin but probably discovered in east‐central Europe, shows the typical composition. Other examples cast from the same mould are known. Although there is little hard fact about this cult and almost nothing written has survived, it is possible to suggest interpretations for much of the imagery by reference to contemporaneous religious activity within the Roman Empire during the second and third centuries AD.