Chapter 21 – Spain and La Tauromaquia

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

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