Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

638

Significance of the Bull

the type of Apis. More certainly affected by it is a bronze bull of
the Hallstatt period from the famous Bycfskala Cave in Moravia
(fig. 499 a, b)1. This remarkable little image was discovered in
1869 at the entry of the cave by a couple of students—Dr Felkel
and his cousin—then on a holiday ramble. It lay in a terra-cotta
bowl surrounded by millet, which had apparently been baked along
with it; and it was attached to a plate of white metal, subsequently
lost. It is a statuette of cast bronze about 100 millimeters in
height. The eye-holes show traces of having been filled with an
iridescent glass-paste. The three lines round the muzzle represent

b

Fig. 499.

a bridle, as in the case of Egyptian bulls. Small triangular plates
of iron2 are inlaid on its forehead and shoulders, and a narrow

pi. 17, 6, 8 Cascantum, p. 175 pi. 18, 1 Graccurris, p. 201 ff. pi. 24, 19, 21, pi. 25, 37,
39, 40, pi. 26, 43 ( = my fig. 498) Caesar Augusta, p. 341 pi. 50, 3 Bailo.

1 H. Wankel Der Bronze-Stier aus der Byciskdla-Hohle Wien 1877 pp. 1—32 with
col. Frontisp. ( = id. in the Mittheilungen der Anthrop. Gesellschaft in Wien 1877
p. 125 ff.), Reinach Rip. Stat. ii. 732, 5, Forrer Reallex. pp. 33, 130.

2 So Wankel op. cit. p. 5 'die kunstlich und muhevoll eingesetzten Eisenplattchen ':
Forrer op. cit. p. 33 says 'mit eingelegtem kupfernem Dreieck auf der Stirn, die schon
von Woldrich mit Apis in Zusammenhang gebracht worden ist,' ib. p. 130, 'welche auf
der Stirne mit rotem Kupfer ausgelegt war und derart an den roten Stirnfieck des
Apisstieres erinnert.'

Reinach Bronzes Figure's p. 278 n. 4 scouts the idea that the iron triangular plates
are due to any imitation of Apis. He cites a bronze cow found at Hallstatt, which served
as the handle of a bowl: its eyes are iron nails, and its forehead is inlaid with a