The worship of the Sacred Bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar to the Western world in the episode of the idol of the Golden Calf made by Aaron and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of Sinai (Exodus). Marduk is the "bull of Utu". Shiva's steed is Nandi, the Bull. The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. The bull is the subject of various other cultural and religious incarnations, as well as modern mentions in ...
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The worship of the Sacred Bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar to the Western world in the episode of the idol of the Golden Calf made by Aaron and worshipped by the Hebrews in the wilderness of Sinai (Exodus). Marduk is the "bull of Utu". Shiva's steed is Nandi, the Bull. The sacred bull survives in the constellation Taurus. The bull is the subject of various other cultural and religious incarnations, as well as modern mentions in new age cultures.
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 worshiped throughout that area as a sacred animal; the earliest survivals of a bull cult are at neolithic Çatalhöyük.
The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh depicts the killing by Gilgamesh and...
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