Charles Ede Ltd (London), Catalogue 106 (March 1977) no. 12 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 98.

1977.01

Bronze Figurine of a Bull

Purchased. Ht 3.8cm; length 4.9cm.

Intact. Small figurine of a bull with short horns and pronounced dewlap; short thick legs; the left front and rear legs forward. Strong modelling but not much detail is preserved.

Compare in general M. Comstock and C.C. Vermeule, Greek, Etruscan and Roman Bronzes (Boston 1971) no. 57, an inscribed example from the Kabeirion at Thebes datable about 490 BC. Classical Greek bulls are regularly shown with such thick necks; see for example the red-figure cup by the Alkyoneus Painter of the beginning of the fifth century, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 77, 1962, 140-141 (the bulls very close to ours in general style).

Such figurines were not uncommon dedications at sanctuaries, whether as thanksgivings, in the hope of better returns, or in place of a sacrifice of the most expensive of offerings. Compare E. Bevan, Representations of Animals in Sanctuaries of Artemis and other Olympian Deities (BAR Int. Series 315, Oxford 1986) although it has nothing particularly relevant for our piece; also, for a sanctuary dedicated to Demeter and Persephone, S. Raffiotta, Terracotte figurate dal santuario di San Francesco Bisconti a Morgantina (Enna 2007).

For a splendid depiction of bulls being taken for sacrifice at the sanctuary of Apollo, see the Attic red-figure volute-krater in Ferrara, from Spina T 416 B (attributed to the Kleophon Painter, J.D. Beazley, Attic Red-Figure Vase-Painters [2nd ed., Oxford 1963] 1144, 21); N. Alfieri and P.E. Arias, Spina [Munich 1958] pll. 85-87; C. Bérard et al., A City of Images [Princeton 1989] 52 fig. 73, with other relevant images on the following pages). Think too of the north and south friezes of the Parthenon as they approach the east front, or the Nike Balustrade.

There is a good discussion of the nature of the Greeks’ relationship with their gods by L. Bruit Zaidman, Le commerce des dieux. Eusebeia, essai sur la piété en Grèce ancienne (Paris 2001), especially chapter 1, “La piété en actes”. Of the huge bibliography on ancient Greek sacrifice, one recalls particularly M. Detienne and J.-P. Vernant (eds), The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks (Chicago 1989) with good bibliography, J.-L. Durand, Sacrifice et labour en Grèce ancienne: essai d;anthropologie religieuse (Paris 1986), or W. Burkert, Homo Necans. The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth (Berkeley 1972). From the perspective of those raising the animals, see the important discussion by M.H. Jameson, “Sacrifice and Animal Husbandry in Classical Greece”, in: C.R. Whittaker (ed.), Pastoral Economies in Classical Antiquity (PCPS Suppl. 14, Cambridge 1988) 87-119 [reprinted in his Cults and Rites in Ancient Greece. Essays on Religion and Society (Cambridge 2014) 198-231].

Modern scholarship often thinks of sacrifice in terms of the meat it provided for those participating, not least for those ordinary members of society who did not often have much of it, but figurines of this kind emphasise the importance of the gift of the animal to the god.

Charles Ede Ltd (London), Catalogue 106 (March 1977) no. 12 (ill.); J.R. Green with B. Rawson, Catalogue of Antiquities in the Australian National University, A.N.U. (Canberra, 1981) 98.