Sacred bull

Cattle in religion The Procession of the Bull Apis by Frederick Arthur Bridgman, oil on canvas, 1879 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 17,500-year-old cave paintings in Lascaux, France Aurochs are depicted in many European Paleolithic 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 Human-headed winged bulls from Sargon II