A Cretan Clay Bull Libation Jug?

Contributed by Professor Keith Branigan, Emeritus Professor, Department of Archaeology, The University of Sheffield, U.K.

My favourite ceramic is not beautiful or elegant, neither is it an outstanding example of the potter’s craft. It is a jug 20cms long and 15cms tall, made of buff clay and decorated only with two broad bands of brown paint. It is made in the form of a bull and has a small hole below the handle at the rear of the animal where liquid could be poured in, and a hole in the bull’s mouth where it could be poured out. It was found in 1906 during excavations near a village called Koumasa in southern Crete, Greece, and is more than 4,000 years old.

So why is this old jug so special to me? Three reasons. Firstly, I think its anonymous maker has managed to capture brilliantly the power of the wild Cretan bull. It has huge curved horns, a massive body, a head held high, and front legs thrust forward as if it has suddenly come to a juddering halt.

Secondly, I think the potter had a sense of humour. Clinging for dear life to each horn is a human figure, with a third spread-eagled across the bull’s forehead. And the bull, for all his power and ferocity is disabled! He has only three legs, two forelegs and a single, central rear leg.

Thirdly, this pot tells me, and other students of the Minoan civilisation of prehistoric Crete, that the famous bull-leaping sports depicted in frescoes and models found in the Minoan palaces around 1400BC, were already being practised in Cretan villages a thousand years earlier.

The vase was found in a cemetery of communal tombs and was probably used to pour libations at a funeral. Could the libations have been for a bull-leaper who had misjudged his leap and paid the ultimate price?