Sacred bull

Cattle are prominent in some religions and mythologies. As such, numerous peoples throughout the world have at one point in time honored bulls as sacred. In the Sumerian religion, Marduk is the "bull of Utu". In Hinduism, Shiva's steed is Nandi, the Bull. The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. The bull, whether lunar as in Mesopotamia or solar as in India, is the subject of various other cultural and religious incarnations as well as modern mentions in New Age cultures.

In prehistoric art

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 thought to have 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 worshipped throughout that area as sacred animals; the earliest remnants of bull worship can be found at neolithic Çatalhöyük.

In antiquity

Mesopotamia

The Sumerian guardian deity called lamassu was depicted as hybrids with bodies of either winged bulls or lions and heads of human males. The motif of a winged animal with a human head is common to the Near East, first recorded in Ebla around 3000 BCE. The first distinct lamassu motif appeared in Assyria during the reign of Tiglath-Pileser II as a symbol of power.

"''The human-headed winged bulls protective genies called shedu or lamassu, ... were placed as guardians at certain gates or doorways of the city and the palace. Symbols combining man, bull, and bird, they offered protection against enemies.''"

The bull was also associated with the storm and rain god Adad, Hadad or Iškur. The bull was his symbolic animal. He appeared bearded, often holding a club and thunderbolt while wearing a bull-horned headdress. Hadad was equated with the Greek god Zeus; the Roman god Jupiter, as Jupiter Dolichenus; the Indo-European Nasite Hittite storm-god Teshub; the Egyptian god Amun. When Enki distributed the destinies, he made Iškur inspector of the cosmos. In one litany, Iškur is proclaimed again and again as "''great radiant bull, your name is heaven''" and also called son of Anu, lord of Karkara; twin-brother of Enki, lord of abundance, lord who rides the storm, lion of heaven.

The Sumerian ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' depicts the killing by Gilgamesh and Enkidu of the Bull of Heaven as an act of defiance of the gods.

Egypt

In Ancient Egypt multiple sacred bulls were worshiped. A long succession of ritually perfect bulls were identified by the god's priests, housed in the temple for their lifetime, then embalmed and buried.

In the Memphite region, the Apis was seen as the embodiment of Ptah and later of Osiris. Some of the Apis bulls were buried in large sarcophagi in the underground vaults of the Serapeum of Saqqara, which was rediscovered by Auguste Mariette in 1851. Other sacred bulls were Mnevis of Heliopolis, the embodiment of Atum- Ra, and Buchis of Armant, linked with the gods Ra and Montu. The mother-cows of these animals were also revered.

Ka, in Egyptian, is both a religious concept of life-force/power and the word for bull. Andrew Gordon, an Egyptologist, and Calvin Schwabe, a veterinarian, argue that the origin of the ankh is related to two other signs of uncertain origin that often appear alongside it: the ''was''-sceptre, representing "power" or "dominion", and the '' djed'' pillar, representing "stability". According to this hypothesis, the form of each sign is drawn from a part of the anatomy of a bull, like some other hieroglyphic signs that are known to be based on body parts of animals. In Egyptian belief semen was connected with life and, to some extent, with "power" or "dominion", and some texts indicate the Egyptians believed semen originated in the bones. Therefore, Calvin and Schwabe suggest the signs are based on parts of the bull's anatomy through which semen was thought to pass: the ankh is a thoracic vertebra, the ''djed'' is the sacrum and lumbar vertebrae, and the ''was'' is the dried penis of the bull.

Central Anatolia

We cannot recreate a specific context for the bull skulls with horns ('' bucrania'') preserved in an 8th millennium BCE sanctuary at Çatalhöyük in Central Anatolia. The sacred bull of the Hattians, whose elaborate standards were found at Alaca Höyük alongside those of the sacred stag, survived in Hurrian and Hittite mythology as Seri and Hurri ("Day" and "Night"), the bulls who carried the weather god Teshub on their backs or in his chariot and grazed on the ruins of cities.

Crete

Bulls were a central theme in the Minoan civilization, with bull heads and bull horns used as symbols in the Knossos palace. Minoan frescos and ceramics depict bull-leaping, in which participants of both sexes vaulted over bulls by grasping their horns.

Iran

The Iranian language texts and traditions of Zoroastrianism have several different mythological bovine creatures. One of these is Gavaevodata, which is the Avestan name of a hermaphroditic "uniquely created (''-aevo.data'') cow (''gav-'')", one of Ahura Mazda's six primordial material creations that becomes the mythological progenitor of all beneficent animal life. Another Zoroastrian mythological bovine is Hadhayans, a gigantic bull so large that it could straddle the mountains and seas that divide the seven regions of the earth, and on whose back men could travel from one region to another. In medieval times, Hadhayans also came to be known as Srīsōk (Avestan *''Thrisaok'', "three burning places"), which derives from a legend in which three "Great Fires" were collected on the creature's back. Yet another mythological bovine is that of the unnamed creature in the ''Cow's Lament'', an allegorical hymn attributed to Zoroaster himself, in which the soul of a bovine (''geush urvan'') despairs over her lack of protection from an adequate herdsman. In the allegory, the cow represents humanity's lack of moral guidance, but in later Zoroastrianism, Geush Urvan became a yazata representing cattle. The 14th day of the month is named after her and is under her protection.

South Asia and South East Asia

Vedic culture

Bulls also appear on seals from the Indus Valley civilisation.

Nandi appears in Hindu mythology as the primary vehicle and the principal ''gana'' (follower) of Shiva.

In Rig Veda, Indra was often praised as a Bull (Vrsabha – 'vrsa' means he and bha means being or uksan- a bull aged five to nine years, which is still growing or just reached its full growth), with bull being an icon of power and virile strength not just in Aryan literature but in many IE cultures.

Vrsha means "to shower or to spray", in this context Indra showers strength and virility.

Meitei culture

Kao (bull), a supernatural divine bull, appears in ancient Meitei mythology and folklore of Ancient Manipur (Kangleipak).
In the legend of the Khamba Thoibi epic, Nongban Kongyamba, a nobleman of ancient Moirang realm, pretended to be an oracle and falsely prophesied that the people of Moirang would lead to miserable lives, if the powerful Kao (bull) roaming freely in the Khuman kingdom, wasn't offered to God Thangjing ( omp, Thangching), the presiding deity of Moirang. Orphan Khuman prince Khamba was chosen to capture the bull, as he was known for his valor and faithfulness. Since to capture the bull without killing it was not an easy task, Khamba's motherly sister Khamnu disclosed to Khamba the secrets of the bull, with which the bull was able to get captured.

Cyprus

In Cyprus, bull masks made from real skulls were worn in rites. Bull-masked terracotta figurines and Neolithic bull-horned stone altars have been found in Cyprus.

Levant

The Canaanite (and later Carthaginian) statue to which sacrifices were burnt, either as a deity or a type of sacrifice – Moloch – was referred to as a horned man, and likened to Cronus by the Romans. There may be a connection between sacrifice to the Cretan horned man Minotaur and Cronus himself. Both Baʿal and El were associated with the bull in Ugaritic texts, as it symbolized both strength and fertility.

Bull figurines are common finds on archaeological sites across the Levant; two examples are the 16th century BCE (Middle Bronze Age) bull calf from Ashkelon, and the 12th century BCE (Iron Age I) bull found at the so-called Bull Site in Samaria on the West Bank.

Cronus's son Zeus was raised on Crete in hiding from his father. Having consumed all of his own children (the gods) Cronus is fed a boulder by Zeus (to represent Zeus's own body so he appears consumed) and an emetic. His vomiting of the boulder and subsequently the other gods (his children) in the Titanomachy bears comparison with the volcanic eruption that appears to be described in Zeus's battle with Typhon in the ''Theogony''. Consequently, Cronus may be associated with the eruption of Thera through the myth of his defeat by Zeus. The later association between Canaanite religions in which child sacrifice took place () and the association of child sacrifice with a horned god (as potentially on Crete and certainly in Carthage) may also be connected with the Greek myth of sending young men and women to the Minotaur, a bull-headed man.

Exodus reads "He took this from their hand, and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf; and they said, 'This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt'."

Nehemiah reads "even when they made an idol shaped like a calf and said, 'This is your god who brought you out of Egypt!' They committed terrible blasphemies."

Calf-idols are referred to later in the Tanakh

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