You are looking at a late 3rd-c. CE Tauroctony, the sacred scene from the Roman Cult of Mithras. Frequently compared with the emerging religion of Christianity, Mithraism featured a savior deity who came down from the stars to save his adherents. Worshippers of this cult were all men, and they met in chambers that resembled a microcosm of the universe: darkened rooms with ceilings sometimes painted with stars resembling the sky. The Tauroctony’s exact meaning remains a mystery, although associations with the constellations must have been part of it. You can make out the sun and the moon in the upper corners. Other creatures represent constellations: the twins are Gemini, the raven Corvis, the scorpion Scorpius, the snake perhaps Draco or Serpens or Hydra, etc . . . Some historians have translated the scene as a star chart, but precise matches with any specific time in the sky can’t be definitively proven. The details call to mind Memory Palaces that some anthropologists have studied as sort of non-literate but precise recording devices for community information.
