Bull
Ancient
mythology, from ancient Greece, Persia, Ireland, Gaul
and elsewhere counted the bull as magical and sacrificial.
Cattle were the primary measure of wealth and the bull
was the symbol of ownership. Strength, virility, swift
in anger.
In
Mesopotamia the
bull was associated with the moon (its horns representing
the crescent moon).
In Egypt the bull was worshiped as Apis, the embodiment
of Ptah/ Osiris. 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 giant
sarcophagus. Ka in Egyptian is both a religious concept
of life-force/power and the word for bull. Marduk is
the "bull
of Utu". Shiva's steed is Nandi, the Bull.
Minoan frescos and ceramics depict bull-leaping
rituals in which participants of both sexes vaulted over
bulls by grasping their horns. For the Greeks, the bull
was strongly linked to the Bull of Crete.
The bull is one of the animals associated with the late
Hellenistic and Roman syncretic cult of Mithras, in which
the killing of the astral bull was as
central in the cult as the Crucifixion was to contemporary
Christians.
The worship of the Sacred Bull is
familiar to the Western world in the episode of the idol
of the Golden Calf made by Aaron
and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of Sinai.
Animal
Spirits
Gallery | Back | Next
|
|
