Bull (mythology)

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Appearances in History

Paleolithic findings

Mesopotamia

Eastern Anatolia

Minoan Civilization

Indus Valley Civilization

Cyprus

Egypt

Judeo-Christian traditions =Old Testament

The Bull is familiar in Judeo-Christian

Judeo-Christian

Judeo?Christian is a term used to describe the body of concepts and values which are thought to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, and considered, often along with classical antiquity Greco-Roman civilization, a fundamental basis for Western world legal codes and moral values....
 cultures from the Biblical episode wherein an idol of the Golden Calf

Golden calf

The golden calf was an idolatry made for the Israelites during Moses' absence, as he went up to Mount Sinai. According to the Hebrew Bible, the calf was made by Aaron to satisfy the Israelites, whereas the Quran indicates the maker to be Samiri....
 is made by Aaron

Aaron

In the Hebrew Bible, Aaron , or Aaron the Levite , was the brother of Moses. He was the great-grandson of Levi and represented the priestly functions of his tribe, becoming the first Kohen Gadol of the Hebrews....
 and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of Sinai (Exodus

Exodus

Exodus is the second book of the Jewish Torah and of the Christian Old Testament. It tells how Moses leads the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Mountain of God Sinai....
). Young bulls were set as frontier markers at Tel Dan

Tel Dan

Tel Dan , also known as Tel el-Qadi , is an archaeological site in Israel in the upper Galilee next to the Golan Heights. The site is quite securely identified with the Biblical city of Laish, the northernmost city in the Kingdom of Israel, which the Book of Judges states was known as Laish prior to its conquest by the Tribe o...
 and at Bethel

Bethel

Bethel was a border city described in the Old Testament as being located between Benjamin and Ephraim. Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome describe it in their time as a small village that lay 12 Roman miles north of Old City , to the right or east of the road leading to Nablus....
 the frontiers of the Kingdom of Israel

Kingdom of Israel

The Kingdom of Israel was one of the successor states to the older United Monarchy . It existed roughly from the 930s BC until about the 720s BC....
.

Christianity

In some Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a Monotheistic religion #Christian view religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus as New Testament view on Jesus' life....
 religions, Nativity scene

Nativity scene

File:Presepe naples rome2.jpgA nativity scene is a depiction of the nativity of Jesus as described in the gospels of Gospel of Matthew and Gospel of Luke....
s are assembled at Christmas

Christmas

Christmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts Twelve Days of Christmas....
 time. Many show a bull or an ox

Ox

Oxen are bovinae trained as draught animals. Often they are adult, castration males. Oxen are used for ploughing, transport, hauling cargo, threshing grain by trampling, powering machines for grinding grain, irrigation or other purposes, and drawing carts and wagons....
 near the baby Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , also known as Jesus Christ, is the central figure of Christianity and is revered by most Christian churches as the Son of God and the Incarnation ....
, lying in a manger. Traditional songs of Christmas often tell of the bull and the donkey warming the infant with their breath.

Greek world

When the heroes of the new Indo-European culture

Proto-Indo-Europeans

The Proto-Indo-Europeans were the speakers of the Proto-Indo-European language, and likely lived around 4000 BC, during the Copper Age and the Bronze Age, or possibly earlier, during the Neolithic or Paleolithic eras....
 arrived in the Aegean basin, they faced off with the ancient Sacred Bull on many occasions, and always overcame it, in the form of the myths that have survived.

Minotaur and The Bull of Crete

For the Greeks, the bull was strongly linked to the Bull of Crete

Cretan Bull

In Greek mythology, the Cretan Bull was either the bull that carried away Europa or the bull Pasipha? fell in love with, giving birth to the Minotaur....
: Theseus

Theseus

For other uses, see Theseus Theseus was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aethra , and fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon, with whom Aethra lay in one night....
 of Athens had to capture the ancient sacred bull of Marathon

Marathon, Greece

Marathon is an ancient Greek city-state, a contemporary town in Greece, the site of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC, in which the heavily outnumbered Athens army defeated the Persian Empirens....
 (the "Marathonian bull") before he faced the Bull-man, the Minotaur

Minotaur

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a creature that was part man and part Bull . It dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction built for King Minos of Crete and designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus who were ordered to build it to hold the Minotaur....
 (Greek for "Bull of Minos"), whom the Greeks imagined as a man with the head of a bull at the center of the labyrinth

Labyrinth

In Greek mythology, the Labyrinth was an elaborate structure designed and built by the legendary artificer Daedalus for King Minos of Crete at Knossos....
. Earlier Minoan

Minoan civilization

The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization which arose on the island of Crete. The Minoan culture flourished from approximately 27th century BC to 1450 BC; afterwards, Mycenaean Greece culture became dominant at Minoan sites in Crete....
 fresco

Fresco

Fresco is any of several related painting types, done on plaster on walls or ceilings. The word fresco comes from the Italian word affresco which derives from the adjective fresco , which has Latin origins....
s and ceramic

Ceramic

File:Bridge from dental porcelain.jpgFile:Qing vase p1070256.jpgA ceramic is an inorganic, nonmetal solid prepared by the action of heat and subsequent cooling....
s depict bull-leaping

Bull-leaping

Bull-leaping is a motif of Middle Bronze Age figurative art, notably of Minoan Crete, but also found in Hittite Empire, the Levant, BMAC and the Indus Valley Civilization....
 rituals in which participants of both sexes vaulted over bulls by grasping their horns. Yet Walter Burkert's constant warning is, "It is hazardous to project Greek tradition directly into the Bronze age

Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is, with respect to a given prehistory, the period in that society when the most advanced metalworking included smelting copper and tin from naturally-occurring outcroppings of copper and tin ores, creating a bronze alloy by melting those metals together, and casting them into bronze artifact s....
"; only one Minoan image of a bull-headed man has been found, a tiny seal

Seal (device)

A seal can mean a wax seal bearing an impressed figure, or an embossed figure in paper, with the purpose of authenticating a document, but the term can also mean any device for making such impressions or embossments, essentially being a Molding that has the mirror image of the figure in counter-relief, such as mounted on rings known a...
 currently held in the Archaeological Museum of Chania

Chania

Chani? is the second largest city of Crete and the capital of the Chania Prefecture. It lies along the north coast of the island, about 70 km west of Rethymno and 145 km west of Heraklion....
.

Twelve Olympians

In the Olympian

Twelve Olympians

The Twelve Olympians or younger gods, also known as the Dodekatheon , in Greek mythology, were the principal Greek Godss of the Greek pantheon , residing atop Mount Olympus, having supplanted the Titan or older gods in the greek mythogical narrative....
 cult, Hera

Hera

In the Twelve Olympians of classical Greek Mythology, Hera or Here was the wife and older sister of Zeus. Her chief function was as goddess of women and marriage....
's epithet

Epithet

An epithet is a descriptive word or phrase accompanying or occurring in place of the name of a person or thing, which has become a fixed formula....
 Bo-opis is usually translated "ox-eyed" Hera, but the term could just as well apply if the goddess had the head of a cow, and thus the epithet reveals the presence of an earlier, though not necessarily more primitive, iconic view. Classical Greeks never otherwise referred to Hera simply as the cow, though her priestess Io

Io (mythology)

In Greek mythology, Io was a priestess of Hera in Argos who was seduced by Zeus, who changed her into a heifer to escape detection. Her mistress Hera set ever-watchful Argus Panoptes to guard her, but Hermes was sent to distract the guardian and slay him....
 was so literally a heifer that she was stung by a gadfly, and it was in the form of a heifer that Zeus coupled with her. Zeus took over the earlier roles, and, in the form of a bull that came forth from the sea, abducted the high-born Phoenician Europa

Europa (mythology)

Europa was a Phoenician woman of high lineage in Greek mythology, from whom the name of the continent Europe has ultimately been taken. The story of her abduction by Zeus in the form of a white bull was a Cretan story, as K?roly Ker?nyi points out; "most of the love-stories concerning Zeus originated from more ancient tales describing his ma...
 and brought her, significantly, to Crete.

Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
 was another god of resurrection who was strongly linked to the bull. In a cult hymn from Olympia

Olympia, Greece

Olympia , a sanctuary of ancient Greece in Elis, is known for having been the site of the Olympic Games in classical times, comparable in importance to the Pythian Games held in Delphi....
, at a festival for Hera, Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
 is also invited to come as a bull, "with bull-foot raging." "Quite frequently he is portrayed with bull horns, and in Kyzikos he has a tauromorphic image," Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert , a scholar of Greek mythology and Cult , is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States....
 relates, and refers also to an archaic myth in which Dionysus

Dionysus

In classical mythology, Dionysus or Dionysos , is the God of wine, the inspirer of ritual madness and ecstasy, and a major figure of Greek mythology, and one of the twelve Olympians, among whom Greek mythology treated Dionysus as a late arrival....
 is slaughtered as a bull calf and impiously eaten by the Titan

Titan (mythology)

In Greek mythology, the Titans ; were a race of powerful deities that ruled during the legendary golden age. Their role as Elder Gods was overthrown by a race of younger gods, the Twelve Olympians, effected a mythological paradigm shift that the Greeks borrowed from the Ancient Near East....
s.

In the Classical period of Greece, the bull and other animals identified with deities were separated as their agalma, a kind of heraldic show-piece that concretely signified their numinous presence.

Ancient Macedonia

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
's famous horse was named Bucephalus

Bucephalus

Bucephalus or Buchephalas was Alexander the Great's horse and the most famous actual horse of Classical antiquity. Ancient accounts state that Bucephalus died after the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 BC, in what is now modern Pakistan, and is buried in Jalalpur Sharif outside of Jhelum , Pakistan....
 ("ox-head"), linking the self-proclaimed god-king with the mythical power of the bull.

Late Hellenistic and Roman Era

The bull is one of the animals associated with the late Hellenistic and Roman syncretic

Syncretism

Syncretism consists of the attempt to reconcile disparate or contrary beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term may refer to attempts to merge and analogy several originally discrete traditions, especially in the theology and mythology of religion, and thus assert an underlying unity allowing for an inclu...
 cult of Mithras, in which the killing of the astral bull, the tauroctony

Tauroctony

A tauroctony is an artistic depiction of the mythic hero and ancient religious savior Mithras engaged in the ritual slaying of a bull. The literal act of sacrifice is known as taurobolium....
, was as central in the cult as the Crucifixion

Crucifixion

Crucifixion is an ancient method of execution , whereby the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead....
 was to contemporary Christians

Early Christianity

Early Christianity is commonly defined as the Christianity of the three centuries between the Crucifixion of Jesus and the First Council of Nicaea ....
. The tauroctony

Tauroctony

A tauroctony is an artistic depiction of the mythic hero and ancient religious savior Mithras engaged in the ritual slaying of a bull. The literal act of sacrifice is known as taurobolium....
 was represented in every Mithraeum

Mithraeum

Mithraeum is a place of worship for the followers of the mystery religion of Mithraism. They were often constructed underground or in a cave to resemble the cave where Mithras is said to have slain the sacred bull ....
 (compare the very similar Enkidu

Enkidu

Enkidu is a central figure in the Ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh. In the story he is a wild-man Feral child until he is bedded by the temple priestess Shamhat....
 tauroctony seal). An often-disputed suggestion connects remnants of Mithraic ritual

Mithraism

The Mithraic Mysteries or Mysteries of Mithras was a mystery cult which became popular among the military in the Roman Empire, from the 1st to 4th centuries AD....
 to the survival or rise of bullfighting

Bullfighting

Bullfighting or tauromachy , is a traditional spectacle of Spain, Portugal, some cities in southern France, and several Latin American countries, in which one or more live bulls are ritually killed as a public spectacle....
 in Iberia and southern France, where the legend of Saint Saturnin

Saturnin

Saint Saturnin of Toulouse , with a calendar of saints entered for November 29, was one of the "Twelve Apostles#Roman Catholic Tradition to the Gauls" sent out during the consulate of Decius and Gratus to Christianize Gaul after the persecutions under Emperor Decius had all but dissolved the small Christian communities....
us (or Sernin) of Toulouse and his protegé in Pamplona, Saint Fermin

Saint Fermin

Saint Fermin of Amiens is one of many locally venerated Catholic saints. Fermin is the co-patron of Navarra, where his feast, the 'San Ferm?n' in the capital Pamplona, is forever associated with the Encierro or 'Running of the Bulls' made famous by Ernest Hemingway....
, at least, are inseparably linked to bull-sacrifices by the vivid manner of their martryrdoms, set by Christian hagiography

Hagiography

Hagiography is the study of saints. A hagiography, from Greek ' and ' , refers literally to writings on the subject of such holy people, and specifically the biography of ecclesiastical and secular leaders....
 in the 3rd century CE, which was also the century in which Mithraism was most widely practiced.

Celtic Polytheism

A prominent zoomorphic deity type is the divine bull. Tarvos Trigaranus

Tarvos Trigaranus

In ancient Gaul, Tarvos Trigaranus was a Cattle god. An alternative spelling is Taruos Trigaranos since the Latin script did not distinguish U and V....
 ("bull with three cranes") is pictured on reliefs from the cathedral at Trier

Trier

Trier is a city in Germany on the banks of the Moselle River. It is the oldest city in Germany, founded in or before 16 BC. Trier is not the only city claiming to be Germany's oldest, but it is the only one that bases this assertion on having the longest history as a city, as opposed to a mere settlement or army camp....
, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
, and at Notre-Dame

Notre Dame de Paris

Notre Dame de Paris is a Gothic architecture cathedral on the eastern half of the ?le de la Cit? in the 4th arrondissement of Paris of Paris, France, with its main entrance to the west....
 de Paris

Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
. In Irish literature

Irish literature

For a comparatively small island, Ireland has made a disproportionate contribution to world literature in all its branches. Irish Literature encompasses the Irish Language and English Language languages....
, the Donn Cuailnge

Donn Cuailnge

In the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology Donn C?ailnge, the Brown Bull of Cooley peninsula, was an extremely fertile stud bull over whom the T?in B? C?ailnge was fought....
 ("Brown Bull of Cooley") plays a central role in the epic Táin Bó Cuailnge

Táin Bó Cúailnge

File:Cuinbattle.jpg is a legendary tale from early Irish literature, often considered an Epic poetry, although it is written primarily in prose rather than verse....
 ("The Cattle-Raid

Cattle raiding

Cattle rustling or cattle raiding is the act of stealing livestock. In Australia, such stealing is often referred to as 'duffing', and the person as a 'duffer'....
 of Cooley").

Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an ancient author, naturalist or natural philosopher and naval and military commander of some importance who wrote Natural History ....
, writing in the first century AD, describes a religious ceremony in Gaul

Gaul

Gaul is the name used for the region of Western Europe comprising part of present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the River Rhine....
 in which white-clad druid

Druid

A druid was a member of the priestly and learned class in the ancient Celts societies of Western Europe, Great Britain and Ireland. They were suppressed by the Ancient Rome and disappeared from the written record by the second century CE....
s climbed a sacred oak

Oak

The term oak can be used as part of the common name of any of about 400 species of trees and shrubs in the genus Quercus , which are listed in the List of Quercus species, and some related genera, notably Lithocarpus....
, cut down the mistletoe

Viscum album

Viscum album is a species of mistletoe, the species originally so-named, and also known as European Mistletoe or Common Mistletoe to distinguish it from other related species....
 growing on it, sacrificed two white bulls and used the mistletoe to cure infertility:

Irish mythology features the tales of the epic hero Cuchulainn

Cúchulainn

C?chulainn is an Irish mythology hero who appears in the stories of the Ulster Cycle, as well as in Scottish folklore and Isle of Man folklore....
, which were collected in the 7th century CE "Book of the Dun Cow."

Interpretations of Bull Worshipping

Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert

Walter Burkert , a scholar of Greek mythology and Cult , is an emeritus professor of classics at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and also has taught in the United Kingdom and the United States....
 summarized modern revision of a too-facile and blurred identification of a god that was identical to his sacrificial victim, which had created suggestive analogies with the Christian Eucharist

Eucharist

The Eucharist, also called Holy Communion or Lord's Supper and other names, is a Christianity sacrament commemorating, by consecrating bread and wine, the Last Supper, the final meal that Jesus Christ shared with his disciples before his arrest, and eventual crucifixion, when he gave them bread saying, "This is my body", and wine...
 for an earlier generation of mythographers:

The concept of the theriomorphic god and especially of the bull god, however, may all too easily efface the very important distinctions between a god named, described, represented, and worshipped in animal form, a real animal worshipped as a god, animal symbols and animal maskes used in the cult, and finally the consecrated animal destined for sacrifice. Animal worship of the kind found in the Egyptian Apis cult is unknown in Greece. ("Greek Religion," 1985).

The sacred bull's myth survives in the constellation Taurus

Taurus (constellation)

Taurus is one of the constellations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin for cattle, and its symbol is , a stylized bull's head. Taurus is a large and prominent constellation in the northern hemisphere's winter sky, between Aries to the west and Gemini to the east; to the north lie Perseus and Auriga , to the southeast Orion , to the south E...
.

It has been suggested that the development of Taurus worshipping was based on ancient traditions giving weight to the astrological Age of Taurus (which was followed by the astrological Age of Aries).

See also

• Camahueto
  Camahueto
  
  The Camahueto from the Chilota mythology has the form of a calf or bull, with a small horn on its forehead, similar to a unicorn....
  
• Nandi
• Taurobolium
  Taurobolium
  
  In the Roman empire of the second to fourth centuries, 'taurobolium' referred to practices involving the animal sacrifice of a Bull , which after mid-second century became connected with the worship of the Great Mother of the Gods; though not previously limited to her Cult , after 159 CE all private taurobolia inscriptions mention Ma...
  

External links

• at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
  Metropolitan Museum of Art
  
  The Metropolitan Museum of Art is an art museum located on the eastern edge of Central Park, along what is known as Museum Mile, New York City in New York City, USA....
   includes one example of the bull standards.