A visit to the Prado in Madrid reveals striking similarities between Spanish bull fighting and the Minoan culture of bull worship and acrobatic bull leaping. The spreading cult of the bull was also backed up by a growing number of archaeological artefacts. Thanks to the ‘Beyond Babylon’ exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, we can see figures leaping the bull in Babylon, the image stamped clearly on a clay seal. In Athens’ National Archaeological Museum is a bronze ring that shows a clean-shaven bull leaper wearing a Minoan-style loincloth somersaulting on to the bull’s back. At Corum in Turkey, a vase from an old Hittite settlement is decorated with thirteen figures gathered around the bull while once again the bull dancer plays out the dangerous game. In Antakya you will find a similar scene in a simple black and white drawing.
Further reading:
Goya, La Tauromaquia: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1199682/tauromaquia-La
Goya: The Speed and Daring of Juanito Apiñani in the Ring of Madrid 1815–16:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Goya_Tauromachia4.jpg
Minoan bull leaper in the British Museum: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/eU0DV7kOQ5inxmklD__YIw
Minoan bull leaper, Knossos: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Bull_Leaper_Knossos_1500BC.jpg
Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade and Diplomacy in the 2nd Millennium BC – Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org/special/beyond_babylon/images.asp
http://www.oceantreasures.org/blog-3.html?tag=Beyond%20Babylon
