|
Bull-leaping (also ''taurokathapsia'', from Greek 〔The name of a ritual bull-fight held on occasion of a festival in Thessaly (scholion to Pindar, ''Pythian Odes'' 2.78), at Smyrna (CIG 3212) and at Sinope (CIG 4157).〕) is a motif of Middle Bronze Age figurative art, notably of Minoan Crete, but also found in Hittite Anatolia, the Levant, Bactria and the Indus Valley.〔One argument for the association of Minoan Crete with the Bronze Age culture of the Indus Valley by H. Mode (Indische Frühkulturen und ihre Beziehungen zum Westen, Basel, 1944); since the 1940s, further bull-leaping motives have been discovered in 2nd millennium BC contexts in Bactria and northern Anatolia.〕 It is often interpreted as a depiction of a ritual performed in connection with bull worship. This ritual consists of an acrobatic leap over a bull; when the leaper grasps the bull's horns, the bull will violently jerk his neck upwards giving the leaper the momentum necessary to perform somersaults and other acrobatic tricks or stunts. ==Iconography== Younger (1995) classifies bull-leaping depictions as follows: * Type I: the acrobat approaches the bull from the front, grabs the horns, and somersaults backwards * Type II: the acrobat approaches the bull from the front, dives over the horns without touching them and pushes himself with his hands from the bull's back into a backward somersault * Type III: the acrobat is depicted in mid-air over the bull's back, facing the same way as the animal The Type III depictions are often found in Late Minoan IIIB artwork (14th to 13th centuries BC). Frescoes in Tell el-Dab'a (Avaris, Egypt) dating to the 18th dynasty (16th to 14th centuries BC) show similar designs besides genuinely Egyptian motifs, for which reason they have usually been ascribed to Minoan-taught Egyptian craftsmen (rather than to Minoan ones directly). They could also have been included as palace decorations because the palace was built for an Aegean princess diplomatically married to a Hyksos pharaoh.〔Rohl, David, The Lords of Avaris, Random House, 2007.〕 Other examples of bull-leaping scenes have been found in Syria, such as a cylinder seal impression found in level VII at Alalakh (Old Babylonian period, 19th or 18th century BC) showing two acrobats performing handstands on the back of a bull, with an ankh sign placed between them, another seal belonging to a servant of Shamshi-Adad I (c. 1800 BC), besides other Syrian examples. Furthermore, a relief vase was discovered in Hüseyindede in 1997, dating to the Hittite Old Kingdom (18th to 15th centuries BC). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Bull-leaping」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|