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Notes on Some Cypriote Priests Wearing Bull-Masks

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Vassos Karageorghis
Vassos Karageorghis
Affiliation:
Department of Antiquities, Nicosia
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Extract

The bull was known in Cyprus as the symbol of the god of fertility already in the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium B.C.). The bucranium, which is the most characteristic part of this animal, appears as a religious symbol on a number of religious documents from Cyprus, namely, models of sanctuaries where bucrania are represented on wooden poles, forming the centre of worship (Fig. 1). In the Aegean world, particularly in Minoan Crete, the head of the sacrificed bull played an important part in religious ritual, especially during the second millennium B.C. In the Near East the idea of fertility impressed most profoundly prehistoric man, and consequently the bull appears in the religious iconography as early as the 7th millennium. The idea of entering into a direct association with the god by putting on the divine image led to the invention of masks which were worn during religious rituals. Monsters with bull's heads appear both in Oriental and Aegean religions already in prehistoric times. The “bull-man” in the Near East and the “Minotaur” in the Aegean dominated for centuries the religious scenes as they appear in both regions, particularly in glyptic. This conception is more evident in later dramatic performances, which succeeded ritual, where the mask was of primary importance.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 64 , Issue 2-3 , July 1971 , pp. 261 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1971

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References

1 Cf. a recent study of this subject by the present writer in the Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus, 1970, 10ff., where references to previous literature are given.

2 Nilsson, Martin P., The Minoan-Mycenaean religion and its survival in Greek religion (Lund, 1950), 232Google Scholarff.

3 Cf. recently Mellaart, James, Catal Hüyük, a Neolithic Town in Anatolia (London, 1967), 77Google Scholarff.

4 Cf. Nilsson, op. cit., 371ff.

5 Cf. Webster, T. B. L., Some thoughts on the pre-history of Greek drama, Institute of Classical Studies, Bulletin no. 5 (1958), 43Google Scholarff.

6 These figurines bear nos. 2170 and 809 respectively; the first is now in the Cyprus Museum (see P. Dikaios, A Guide to the Cyprus Museum [3rd ed., 1961], 86, no. 8) and the second in the Medelhavsmuseet, Stockholm. Of the second figurine a frontal view was already published in The Swedish Cyprus Expedition, II, pl. 233, fig. 8, and in E. Sjöqvist, Die Kultgeschichte eines cyprischen Temenos, , Archiv für Religionswissenschaft 30(1932Google Scholar), 345, fig. 11. The profile view is published here for the first time with the generous permission of Professor O. Vessberg, Director of the Medelhavsmuseet, who also provided the photograph.

7 Op. cit., 344ff.; see also The Swed. Cyprus Exped., II, 823.

8 J. L. Myres, Handbook of the Cesnola Collection, p. 150f., nos. 1029, 1030 and 1031, and p. 340, no. 2046. Two of these figurines represent a votary wearing a bull-mask, the third a votary wearing a stag-mask, whereas the fourth holds aloft in the left hand a mask of a horned animal which he has just removed from his head.

9 See J. and Young, S., Terracotta Figurines from Kourion in Cyprus (Philadelphia, 1955Google Scholar), pl. 11, nos. 825 and 814; others are mentioned on p. 41; also BCH 84(1960), 275Google Scholar, fig. 54.

10 See Myres, op. cit., p. 342, nos. 2071–75; Young, op. cit., p. 45, nos. 949–51.

11 See Dikaios, P., The Bronze Statue of a Horned God from Enkomi, Archä-ologischer Anzeiger (1962), 18Google Scholarff.; also BCH 87(1963), 372Google Scholarf.

12 For a preliminary report by the present writer see BCH 94(1970), 255 and 256, fig. 106.

13 André Dupont-Sommer, Une inscription phénicienne archaïque récemment trouvée à Kition (Chypre), Mémoires de l'Académic des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, tome XLIV (1970), 26ff.

14 It should be noted tha t in some villages in Cyprus and elsewhere in the Near East the skulls of oxen and other animals (rams, sheep) are hung above the doors of houses against the evil eye. Cf. Nilsson, op. cit., 232, note 16.