The worship of the Sacred Bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar in the episode of the idol of the Golden Calf made by Aaron and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of Sinai (Exodus). But far to the east, Shiva's holy steed (called vahana in Sanskrit) is Nandi, the Bull. Adoration of the Golden Calf by Nicolas Poussin: imagery influenced by the Greco-Roman bacchanal In the Hebrew Bible the golden calf was an idol made by Aaron for the Israelites during Mosess unexpectedly long absence. ... For other uses of the name, see Exodus (disambiguation) Exodus is the second book of the Torah (the five books of Moses) and also the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible) and Christian Old Testament. ... For the Jewish ritual of mourning, see Shivah. ...

A wild Aurochs bull was a terrifying creature. Killing it or taming it was a heroic feat. Aurochs are depicted in many Paleolithic European cave paintings such as those found at Lascaux and Livernon in France. Their life force may have been attributed with magical qualities, for early carvings of the aurochs have also been found. The impressive and dangerous aurochs survived into the Iron Age in Anatolia and the Near East and were worshiped throughout that area as a sacred animal. Binomial name Bos taurus Bojanus, 1827 The aurochs (Bos taurus) is an extinct European mammal of the Bovidae family. ... The caves of Lascaux, in France, contain some of the earliest known art, dating back to somewhere between 13,000 and 15,000 BC. The Paleolithic cave paintings consist mostly of realistic images of large animals, including aurochs, most of which are known from fossil evidence to have lived in...

From earliest times the bull was lunar in Mesopotamia (its horns representing the crescent), though we cannot recreate a specific context for the bull skulls with horns (bucrania) preserved in an 8th millennium BCE sanctuary at Çatalhöyük in eastern Anatolia. The sacred bull of the Hattians, whose elaborate standards were found at Alaca Höyük alongside those of the sacred stag, survived in the Hurrian and Hittite mythologies as Seri and Hurri ('Day' and 'Night')—the bulls who carried the weather god Teshub on their backs or in his chariot, and who grazed on the ruins of cities (Hawkes and Woolley, 1963; Vieyra, 1955). In Cyprus bull masks made from real skulls were worn in rites, and Cypriote bull-masked terracotta figurines have been found (Burkert 1985). And Cyprus retains its bull-horned stone altars. Excavations at the South Area of Çatal Höyük Çatalhöyük [ʧɑtɑl højyk] (also Çatal Höyük and Çatal Hüyük, or any of the three without accent marks -- Çatal is Turkish for fork and Höyük is Turkish for mound) was a very large Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in southern Anatolia, dating from around... The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the land of Hatti in Asia Minor in the 3rd to 2nd millennia BC. They spoke a non-Indo-European language of uncertain affiliation called Hattic (now believed by some to be related to the Northwest Caucasian language group). ... Deer has significant role in mythology of various peoples. ... The Hurrians were a people of the Ancient Near East, who apparently originated in the Caucasus and entered Mesopotamia from the north approximately 2500 BC. Their known homeland was centred in the Khabur River valley, and later they established themselves as rulers of small kingdoms throughout northern Mesopotamia and Syria. ... The Hittites is the conventional English-language term for an ancient people who spoke an Indo-European language and established a kingdom centered in Hattusa (the modern village of Boğazköy in north-central Turkey), through most of the second millennium BC. The Hittite kingdom, which at its height controlled central... Teshub was the Hurrian god of sky and storm. ...

In Egypt the bull was worshiped as the embodiment of Apis, and a long series of ritually perfect bulls were identified by the god's priests, housed in the temple for their lifetime, then embalmed and encased in a sarcophagus. A long sequence of monolithic stone sarcophagi were housed in the Serapeum, rediscovered by Mariette at Saqqara. See Apis. A sarcophagus is a stone container for a coffin or body. ... The Serapeum of Alexandria in Ptolemaic Egypt was a temple built by Ptolemy III (reigned 246 BC-222 BC) and dedicated to Serapis, the syncretic Hellenistic-Egyptian god who was made the protector of Alexandria. ... The French scholar and archaeologist Auguste Ferdinand François Mariette (February 11, 1821 - January 19, 1881) was the foremost Egyptologist of his generation, and the founder of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. ... Saqqara is a vast, ancient burial ground in Egypt, featuring the worlds oldest standing step pyramid. ... Apis can refer to the following: Apis — An Egyptian god Apis — A Bee genus Apis — In Greek mythology a prophet. ...

Walter Burkert 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 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).

When the heroes of the new Indo-European culture 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. For the Greeks, the bull was strongly linked to the Bull of Crete: Theseus of Athens had to capture the ancient sacred bull of Marathon (the "Marathonian bull") before he faced the Bull-man, the Minotaur. In the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete, the Minotaur (Greek for "Bull of Minos"), was a man with the head of a bull. Minoan frescos and ceramics depict bull-leaping rituals in which participants of both sexes vaulted over bulls by grasping their horns. Yet Walter Burket's constant warning is, "It is hazardous to project Grek tradition directly into the Bronze age" (Burkert 1985 p. 24) Apis can refer to the following: Apis — An Egyptian god Apis — A Bee genus Apis — In Greek mythology a prophet. ... In Greek mythology, the Cretan Bull was either the bull that carried away Europa or the bull Pasiphae fell in love with. ... Theseus (Θησευς) was a legendary king of Athens, son of Aegeus (or of Poseidon). ... Marathon has multiple meanings Marathon (sport), an athletic event Marathon, Greece (and the Battle of Marathon), after which the sport was named Other places with the name in the United States Marathon (village), New York Marathon (town), New York Marathon, Texas Marathon, Florida Marathon, Ontario in Canada Until 1990, the... In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a creature that was half man and half bull. ... The Bronze Age is a period in a civilizations development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze. ... Map of Minoan Crete The Minoans were a pre-Hellenic Bronze Age civilization in Crete in the Aegean Sea, prior to Helladic or Mycenaean culture (i. ... Crete, sometimes spelled Krete (Greek Κρήτη / Kriti) is the largest of the Greek islands and the fifth largest in the Mediterranean Sea. ... In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a creature that was half man and half bull. ... A XIV Century fresco featuring Saint Sebastian Note: Fresco is the NATO reporting name of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-17. ... The word ceramic is derived from Greek, and in its strictest sense refers to clay in all its forms. ... Bull-leaping, fresco from the Great Palace at Knossos, Crete Bull-leaping was a key ritual in the religion of the Minoan civilization on Bronze Age Crete. ... The Bronze Age is a period in a civilizations development when the most advanced metalworking has developed the techniques of smelting copper from natural outcroppings and alloys it to cast bronze. ...

In the Olympian cult, Hera's epithet Boopis 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 was so literally a heifer that she was stung by a gadfly, and as a heifer Zeus coupled with her. Zeus took over the earlier roles, and, in the form of a bull that came forth from the sea, abducted Europa. As a noun, Olympian can refer to: One of the Twelve Olympians (see also Greek mythology). ... In the Olympian pantheon of classical Greek Mythology, Hêra (Greek or ) was the wife and sister of Zeus. ... Linguistics An epithet (Greek epitheton) is a descriptive word or phrase, often metaphoric, that is essentially a reduced or condensed appositive. ... This article is not about the daughter of Tityus and mother of Euphemus (by Poseidon), who was also named Europa. ...

Dionysus was another god of resurrection who was strongly linked to the bull. In a cult hymn from Olympia, at a festival for Hera, Dionysus 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 relates and refers to an archaic myth in which he is slaughtered as a bull calf and impiously eaten by the Titans (Burkert 1985 pp. 64, 132). Bacchus by Caravaggio The god Dionysus is occasionally confused with one of several historical figures named Dionysius, a theophoric name that simply means [servant] of Dionysus. ... Olympia (Greek: Ολυμπία Olympía or Ολύμπια Olýmpia, older transliterations, Olimpia, Olimbia), a city 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. ... Bacchus by Caravaggio The god Dionysus is occasionally confused with one of several historical figures named Dionysius, a theophoric name that simply means [servant] of Dionysus. ... In Greek mythology, the Titans (Greek Τιτάν, plural Τιτᾶνες) are among a series of gods who oppose Zeus and the Olympian gods in their ascent to power. ...

In the Classical period, 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.

Alexander the Great's famous horse was named Bucephalus ("the ox-headed"), linking the self-proclaimed god-king with the mythical power of the bull. Bust of Alexander III in the British Museum. ... Bronze statue of Alexander on Bucephalus Museo Nazionale di Villa Guilia, Rome, Italy Bucephalus (meaning ox-head) was Alexander the Greats horse. ...

The bull is one of the animals associated with the Hellenistic and Roman syncretic cult of Mithras, in which the killing of the astral bull, the tauroctony, was as central in the cult as the Crucifixion is to Christians. A tauroctony was represented in every Mithraeum. Mithraic origins may have contributed to the rise of bullfighting in Iberia and the south of France, where the legend of Saint Saturninus ("Saint Sernin") of Toulouse and his protegé in Pamplona, Saint Fermin, are inseparably linked to bull-sacrifices by the vivid manner of their martryrdom, set in the 3rd century CE. Syncretism is the attempt to reconcile disparate, even opposing, beliefs and to meld practices of various schools of thought. ... Mithras was the central savior god of Mithraism, a syncretic Hellenistic mystery religion of male initiates that developed in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 2nd and 1st centuries BC and was practiced in the Roman Empire from the 1st century BC to the 5th century AD. Parthian coins and documents... Bull attacking a matador Bullfighting or tauromachy (Spanish toreo, corrida de toros or tauromaquia; Portuguese tourada, corrida de touros or tauromaquia) is a blood sport that involves, most of the time, professional performers (matadores) who execute various formal moves with the goal of appearing graceful and confident, while masterful over... Roman emperor Iulius Saturninus (died 280) was a Gaul by birth (others have him as a Moor) and was a friend of the emperor Probus. ...

Irish Gaelic myth features the tales of the epic hero Cuchulainn, which were collected in the 7th century CE Book of the Dun Cow. Young Cúchulainn, 1912 illustration by Stephen Reid. ...

In some Christian religions Nativity scenes are assembled at Christmas time. Most of them show a bull or an ox near baby Jesus, lying in a manger. Traditional songs of Christmas often tell of the bull and the donkey warming the infant with their breath. The term Christian means belonging to Christ and is derived from the Greek noun Χριστός Khristós which means anointed one, which is itself a translation of the Hebrew word Moshiach (Hebrew: משיח, also written Messiah), (and in Arabic it is pronounced Maseeh مسيح). ... A traditional nativity scene from Naples, Italy A nativity scene (usually capitalized if referring to the birth of Jesus), also called a crib or crèche (meaning crib or manger in French) generally refers to any depiction of the birth or birthplace of Jesus. ... Christmas (literally, the Mass of Christ) is a holiday in the Christian calendar, usually observed on December 25, which celebrates the birth of Jesus. ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... Jesus, also known as Jesus Christ*, Jesus of Nazareth, and Jesus the Nazarene, is the central figure in Christianity. ...

The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. Taurus (♉) is one of the constellations of the zodiac, and its name is Latin for Bull. ...

External link

• An exhibit on the tombs of Alaca Höyük (http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/First_Cities/death_anatolia.htm) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art includes one example of the bull standards.

There is also the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), located in Manhattan. ...

References

• Burkert, Walter, Greek Religion, 1985.
• Hawkes, Jacquetta; Woolley, Leonard: Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization, v. 1 (NY, Harper & Row, 1963)
• Vieyra, Maurice: Hittite Art, 2300-750 B.C. (London, A. Tiranti, 1955)