Jumping to Conclusions: Bull-Leaping in Minoan Crete

Abstract

Bull-leaping has become one of the most emblematic activities of Minoan Crete and has recently received renewed attention with the BBC/British Museum radio series, A History of the World in 100 Objects. One of the featured objects, a Minoan bronze group of a bull and acrobat, was brought to life in a television advertisement using a modern bull and leaper. This act of translation is at the heart of the dialogue this paper seeks to address: the interaction between current human attitudes toward nonhuman animals and their depictions, and those of the Bronze Age. It suggests that the animal practices of the past were shaped by material and social circumstances far removed from those of modernity. The mutual affordances of bulls and humans have resulted in similar interactions, or bull games, in different societies, but modern archaeologists have tended to downplay the relationship between bull and leaper in Bronze Age Crete by regarding bull-leaping in purely symbolic terms. An archaeological account informed by Human-Animal Studies can instead bring to the foreground both the familiarity and distinctiveness of past human-animal relationships.

Hierophany and Sport

“…Part of Cretan religion in the Minoan period included ritual ceremonies that included taurokathapsia, i.e., jumping over a galloping bull. The acrobat (boy or girl) would grab the bull by its horns; the bull would throw the acrobat into the air with a violent jerk; the acrobat would perform a somersault over the bull's back and land on his/her hands or feet on the back of the running bull; and then jump to the ground behind the bull (Olivová 1979;Shapland 2013). Dangerous feats not infrequently ended tragically; these were true death somersaults.…”

Residents’ perception and economic impact of bullfighting: the case of Feria del Toro (Olivenza, Spain)

“…2 For a full description of the origins of bullfighting see Guillaume-Alonso (1994) and López-Martínez (2002). Marvin (1988) provides a good anthropological description of corridas, while Shapland (2013) investigates the roots of games with bulls in ancient Crete and the connection with current corridas.…”

Animality and Biblical Masculinities in Conflict: Moses and the Golden Calf (Exodus 32)

“…That the statue represents a bull is far more revealing, as the confrontation stages a clash of identical rival forces. The submission of the bull statue by the prophet recalls numerous Minoan games characteristic of the ancient era in which athletes demonstrated their bravery by taking an animal into their own hands, subjugating it (Shapland 2013). Moses confronts his rival in a battle between equals, a symbolic struggle by which to measure their respective strength and a means to recover and strengthen his lost masculinity.…”