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The Lascaux shaft "scene" (about 1,5 m in cross-section) suggests some ideas.
The scene of the combat of a man and a bull from the Lascaux cave is not
unique in the upper Palaeolithic art. A painting close in subject is in the Pindal
cave (Spain): a wounded bull aimed his horns at two prostrate figures, one of
them also with a marked male sign. The same subject is engraved on an antler
from the Laugerie -Basse cave. One can well believe, that an artistic image of
a tragic conflict between a man and a bull had appeared almost together with the
art itself and remained steadily in all the subsequent periods of history. This
theme is still one of the leading in the eurasian artistic folklore from
Franco-Cantabrien and Levant on the west up to Pribaikalye and Mongolia on the east.
But to the east from Baikal area and to the north from the boundary between the
partially-wooded steppe and the taiga the image of a bull is not met in the
ancient imaginative monuments. Ancient cults, connected with a bull, were also
widely spread in the eurasian steppes and at the foothills. A very interesting
sculptural composition from the bull skulls coated with clay and painted with
ochre was found in one of the "temples" of the ancient aeneolithic settlement
Chatal-Huyuk
In ancient Aeneolithc and Bronze burials one can find the bull's bones,
that is, the remains of meat pieces which were put by the relatives in the grave
as funeral food for the dead. Judging by the bones the deceased was supplied
with the meat of either a wild bison, or a domestic bull. Hence, even after
domestication of the bull, the wild-bull-hunting still went on. Developed in the
Upper Palaeolithc, the bull cult gradually turned into a sacrifice ritual and
spread over the whole eurasian zone of mountains and steppes. It is clearly seen
by some finds in the barrows of the catacomb culture (II millenium B.C.). At the
catacomb entrance or in the burial mound there are accurately piled bull's
skull and bones of four legs (the end parts).It means that during funeral a bull
was killed and its skin with the head and four legs, cut off the shoulders or
thighs, were ripped off. The skin with the legs and the head were devoted to the
dead and the rest carcass was used as a funeral food.
Within the boundaries of this theme some subjects with the participation
of a man and a bull are of special interest. They are numerous: from the frescoes
of the aeneolithic Chatal-Huyuk to Hellenistic Mitra,
killing a bull and up to the
modern Spanish corrida.
The real sources of the mythological subject, probably, lie in the world of
the Upper Palaeothic hunters (about 20000 years ago).
The wild bull hunting
was always very dangerous and required complete mobilization of moral and
physical strengths of a person, his deftness, lightning response and
thoroughly worked out "technology", which was, obviously taught from the very
childhood to make all the skills and methods automatic. A hunter could rely neither on a prolonged fight nor on an
escape in flight in case of bad luck: the forces were too unequal. That is why he had
to kill the bull almost with one exact stroke. If the stroke did not achieve the aim or
was not powerful enough, the infuriated bull rushed at the hunter and the latter's
destiny depended on his fast legs or a tree, happily turned up on his way, where he
could shelter. On an even place the hunter was doomed to destruction.
Archaeological observations give interesting data concerning the combat
of a man and a bull. An exceptional discovery, made by Z.A.Abramova
during the excavations of the upper palaeolithic settlement
Kokorevo I in
the Yenisei valley, testifies to the thoroughly worked out technology of the
wild- bull- hunting. There a left shoulder-blade of a large 6-7 years old
bison was found. A horn head of a dart or of an arrow stuck in it. The
sharp edge of the head, having pierced the shoulder-blade, went out
almost 4 cm from its inner side. After such a stroke the slightest
movement of the left front leg injured the bison greatly because at any
movement of the leg the dart edge cut and torn the shoulder and chest
muscles under the shoulder-blade. A single wound like that was enough to
make the animal quite unable to fight or to escape.
That method of hunting, mastered almost 15000 ago, was used during the whole
subsequent period of history. The American Indians, while hunting the bisons
with a spear or a bow in the XVIII c, used almost the same method.
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