  the worship of the sacred bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar to the western world in the biblical episode of the idol of the golden calf. the golden calf after being made by the hebrew people in the wilderness of sinai, were rejected and destroyed by moses and the hebrew people after moses' time upon mount sinai (book of exodus). marduk is the "bull of utu". shiva's steed is nandi, the bull. the sacred bull survives in the constellation taurus. the bull, whether lunar as in mesopotamia or solar as in india, is the subject of various other cultural and religious incarnations, as well as modern mentions in new age cultures. ==stone age== aurochs are depicted in many paleolithic european cave paintings such as those found at lascaux and livernon in france. their life force may have been thought to have magical qualities, for early carvings of the aurochs have also been found. the impressive and dangerous aurochs survived into the iron age in anatolia and the near east and was worshipped throughout that area as a sacred animal; the earliest survivals of a bull worship are at neolithic ÃatalhÃ¶yÃ¼k. the bull was seen in the constellation taurus by the chalcolithic and had marked the new year at springtide by the bronze age, for 4000â1700 bce. ==bronze age== ===mesopotamia=== the sumerian epic of gilgamesh depicts the killing by gilgamesh and enkidu of the bull of heaven, gugalana, first husband of ereshkigal, as an act of defiance of the gods. from the earliest times, the bull was lunar in mesopotamia (its horns representing the crescent moon).jules cashford, the moon: myth and image 2003, begins the section "bull and cow" pp 102ff with the simple observation "other animals become epiphanies of the moon because they look like the moon.... the sharp horns of a bull or cow were seen to match the pointed curve of the waxing and waning crescents so exactly that the powers of the one were attributed to the other, each gaining the other's potency as well as their own." ===egypt===  in egypt, the bull was worshiped as apis, the embodiment of ptah and later of osiris. a long series of ritually perfect bulls were identified by the god's priests, housed in the temple for their lifetime, then embalmed and encased in a gia
Animal_worship Comparative_mythology Indo-European_mythology Middle_Eastern_mythology Minoan_culture Mythological_bovines Mythological_bulls