The Minoan Bull Leaper

Another fascinating object from the British Museum's History of the World in 100 Objects is this small bronze statue of a Minoan bull leaper. I confess that I never saw this before -- which is somewhat puzzling, given that I have read a stack of books on Minoan Crete and visited the British Museum about five times during the year I lived in London. Perhaps it was on loan elsewhere that year.

According to the museum,

The group is solid cast, in one piece, using the lost wax technique. The arms are not represented, but end in stumps: it is not clear whether this was by design or because the bronze did not flow into the extremities of the mould. Equally, the loss of the lower legs may have been due to a casting fault. . . .

This bronze group was bought in 1921 by Capt. Spencer-Churchill, a noted collector of bronzes whose collection was dispersed after his death in 1964. The entry in his register (no. 218) states that it was: ‘Acquired in Rethymno where it was probably excavated’. It is possible that it was originally deposited at a rural sanctuary in the Rethymnon area, but its findspot is unknown.

It was published by Sir Arthur Evans, excavator of Knossos, in the Journal of Hellenic Studies (see below). He dated it to the Late Minoan I period, around 1600 BC, and compared it to an ivory bull-leaper found at Knossos, now in Heraklion Museum.

Various "experts" have proclaimed that this sort of bull leaping would be impossible. But who knows what people and bulls who trained together for years could have managed, especially if the bulls were specially bred for the job?