Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

630 Zeus as an ox; Zeus Olbios

and a himdtion. His left hand grasps a sceptre, the lower end of
which disappears behind an eagle with spread wings. His right
hand holds a bossed phidle, from which he is pouring a libation
above the flame of a small altar. But the most noteworthy feature
of the design is that the head of the god with its full beard and
long hair combines two bovine horns1. Below the figure of Zeus is
a sacrificial scene. In the centre is a flaming altar. Before it, a
represented on a small scale so as not to conceal the altar, a i~«an
with a double axe is about to strike a bull, whose head is bound by
a cord to a ring fixed in the ground2. On one side stand a °Y
and a man. Their raised right hands held objects of an oval shap
(fruit ?)3. The boy's lowered left hand is holding a bunch of graPeS'
On the other side stand a girl and a woman. The girl carries
her left hand a dish of fruit and flowers4. The woman has fi^ets
in her left hand, and raises her right with open palm in a gesture
of invocation. ^
Zeus Olbios, the god 'of Welfare5,' was evidently a giv'er^
fertility; and his bovine horns were due, not to a late confusion
other deities6, but to an early conception of him as taurornoip

, ,„.ed later
ock, "seu

district, having been found near Gunen, presumably at Kavak: (1) a bl
for a capital, inscribed [A]i[! 'OM^y?] | [Ei]ixijK6(u)p? /3[w]|/*6f virep (e)a[v]\rou ^'^ed
(Yjai TeKnu[i>] I [«r]ai t[Hv Kijiix-qrGiv?]. (2) an altar, with a bucranium in relief; 1^^yjros

8e§ I [A]ii 'OX/3/y I--. (3) a fragmentary cippus inscribed [Seal '0A/3'V I P ,^6;^s |

hovyei[vos] \ [--]iov Trpay/u.aTeu\[T]rjs [--]. (4) a small base inscribed HpaK jjng

"BpaK\ei\dov 8etp | 'OXplip {,Tr\[£p......]. (5) a broken stile, with a relief of Zeus s a

and an eagle on the ground to the right, inscribed ['AJrrdAou |--. wnlia'n

1 Harrison Themis'2 p. 149 n. 1: ' Miss M. Hardie [Mrs F. W. Hasluck], of Ne ^
College, kindly examined the original of the relief and writes to me that, so far a

be made out, there is all the appearance of a bull-mask worn by a human hea • w0Uld
were certain we should have the figure of a priest impersonating a bull-god' wll°put tl>e
be of singular interest.' It would indeed (?cp. supra i. 490 ff. fig. 354' 49°{; says
assumption is too precarious. Edhem Bey in the Bull. Cory. Hell. 1908 xxxii- D- ^%
merely 'la tete barbue, a long (sic) cheveux flottants sur le cou, est surrnonte ^nopU
cornes, recourbees comme celles d'un bovide,' and Mendel Cat. Sculpt- Cons c0tnzs
iii. 39 echoes him: ' la tete est barbue, avec de longs cheveux flottants et de
de taureau.' Neither suggests a mask. ;;. 361

2 So on a fragmentary relief from Tralleis (Edhem Bey in the Rev. Arch- *?°^ejnach
pi. 15, 1, id. in the Bull. Corr. Hell. 1904 xxviii. 71 ff. pi. 7, 1908 xxxii. 52° ■' fig.),
Rep. Reliefs ii. 169 no. 2, Mendel Cat. Sculpt. Constantinople ii. 266 ff- n0, *ge_
which showed a similar sacrifice about to take place at the foot of an old P'an^ajn di'°>te

3 Edhem Bey in the Bull. Corr. Hell. 1908 xxxii. 522 says 'lis ont", j^ndel Cat'
relevee et tenant un objet indistinct, de forme ovale, peut-etre une torche. ^ ^ gs.i°x'
Sculpt. Constantinople iii. 40, ' un homme debout...leve la main droite en

ation; a cote" de lui, un jeune garcon...dans la meme attitude,' etc. ^ cit. 'u°

4 Edhem Bey loc. cit. ' un plat charge de fruits et de fleurs.' Mende
plateau charge de fruits.'

6 Cp. Apollon o\/3ios in Anth. Pal. 9. 525. 16 'iXfiiov, dXpioepyiv.
0 Edhem Bey loc. cit. p. 525.