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Vaulted Tombs of Mesara ➔ Clay libation vessel (rhyton) in the shape of a bull with bull-leapers

Π4126
Clay
One of the bull's horns and two of the three figures are restored.
Height: 15. 1 cm. (from highest point of handle) Length: 20.4 cm.
Koumasa
Area Delta
Early Bronze Age. Prepalatial period, Early Minoan ΙΙ - ΙII period.:
2700 - 2000 BC:
Gallery:
II
Case:
22
Exhibition thematic unit:
Middle Bronze Age - Late Prepalatial-Protopalatial period (2200-1700 BC). From small communities to towns
Plastic cult vessels
Description
Clay libation vessel (rhyton) in the shape of a bull with human figures on it. The handmade flask-shaped vessel stands on three small legs and has a handle on the bull’s back. Liquid was poured into the rhyton through a hole in the back of the animal and poured out through the hole in its muzzle. The bull’s body is decorated with wide brown bands. Two figures, probably male, are clinging to the bull’s horns, while a third, wearing a belt, is lying on its head. The tradition of the modelled rhyton/vessel is combined with that of coroplastic art, resulting in a three-dimensional scene, the earliest known depiction of bull-capturing or bull-leaping, a subject very familiar from later Minoan iconography. The rhyton was found in the open space between the tholos tombs of Koumasa, an area used for funerary rituals. This makes increases the probability that the sport of bull-capturing or bull-leaping was already a ritual event in the Early Minoan period.
Bibliography:
Mandalaki, S. "Ο Ταύρος ως Σύμβολο Δύναμης." In S. Mandalaki and G. Rethemiotakis, Μινωικός κόσμος. Ταξίδι στις απαρχές της Ευρώπης, Heraklion, 2015, 148-149. Marinatos, N. "The Bull as an Adversary: Some Observations on Bull-Hunting and Bull-Leaping." Αριάδνη 5 (1989): 23-32. Xanthoudides, St. The Vaulted Tombs of Mesara. An Account of Some Early Cemeteries of Southern Crete. London, 1924, 40, pl. II:4126, XXVIII:4126.
Author:
E. S.


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