page_title: Bull-Leaping Fresco
section_title: Taurokathapsia and other classical words
hierarchical_section_title: Bull-Leaping Fresco / Theme / Taurokathapsia and other classical words
caption_attribution_description: English: Archaeological Museum of Herakleion. Minoan bull leaping fresco ( 1600 - 1450 B.C. ) - detail Deutsch: Archäologisches Museum in Herakleion. Minoisches Stiersprung-Fresco ( 1600 - 1450 v.Chr. ) - Detail
context_page_description: The Bull-Leaping Fresco, as it has come to be called, is the most completely restored of several stucco panels originally sited on the upper-story portion of the east wall of the palace at Knossos in Crete. Although they were frescos, they were painted on stucco relief scenes and therefore are classified as plastic art. They were difficult to produce. The artist had to manage not only the altitude of the panel but also the simultaneous molding and painting of fresh stucco. The panels, therefore, do not represent the formative stages of the technique. In Minoan chronology, their polychrome hues – white, pale red, dark red, blue, black – exclude them from the Early Minoan and early Middle Minoan Periods. They are, in other words, instances of the "mature art" created no earlier than MM III. The flakes of the destroyed panels fell to the ground from the upper story during the destruction of the palace, probably by earthquake, in Late Minoan II. By that time the east stairwell, near which they fell, was disused, being partly ruinous.
  The theme is a stock scene, one of a few depicting the handling of bulls.
context_section_description: Evans noted the survival of bull sports into classical times; for example, the taurokathapsia of Thessaly. The word means "laying hold of the bull," which in modern times is sometimes used for dabing of the Taureador Fresco. Evans did not use it in that way. The Thessalian taurokathapsia was performed from horseback. The Tiryns Fresco depicts a youth on the back of a bull holding its horns, an activity similar to bull-dogging. First the bull in the ring is baited by riders to exhaust him. Then a rider comes up beside him, leaps on his back, seizes the horns, and falling to one side twists the head, bringing down the tired bull. Macedonian coins depict Artemis Tauropolos, "Artemis Bullrider," mounted on a charging bull. Miletus held the Boegia, "Bull Driving," involving a bull-grappling contest.
  One problem with the Taureador Fresco as a taurokathapsia is its logical sequence. Depicted are three individuals, two women (one at the front, one at the back), and a male youth shown balancing on the bull. Their genders are identified according to the accepted Minoan art convention of painting women with pale skin and men with dark skin. The status of the participants is identified by their clothes and jewelry. The bull evidences the Mycenaean Flying Leap, which means he is intended to be at full gallop. The artist has shown the bull's body in an elongated form with extended legs to indicate movement. His horns, however, are being firmly held by the woman in front - possibly either in preparation to leap over the bull, or while stationary. However, if the woman is holding the bull, it cannot be galloping. The boy could be interpreted as being shown in a balancing, not a tumbling, position. He holds the flanks of the bull with both hands. If he were tumbling, and if he had used the horns to get a purchase, the woman would not be now holding them. It may not show a compressed chronological sequence, as the individuals are all different. Instead, icons that are disconnected in real time and space may have been superimposed to give an overall impression of a scene familiar to the artists and their viewers, but not to today's public.
caption: Close-up of left figure of the Taureador Fresco
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