Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic ArtHyde, Walter Woodburn
History
Olympic Victor Monuments and Greek Athletic Art
Hyde, Walter Woodburn
Olympics; Sculpture, Greek; Sports -- Greece
The Cretan bull seems to have been a much larger animal than the
species found upon the island to-day.[4] Bull-grappling at Knossos
was the sport of female as well as male toreadors. A fragmentary
rectangular fresco, dating from about 1500 B. C. (Pl. 1), was
discovered there by Sir Arthur Evans in 1901 and is now in the Candia
museum. It is executed with extraordinary spirit and shows a huge bull
rushing forward with lowered head and tail straight out. A man is in
the act of turning a somersault on its back, his legs in the air, his
arms grasping the bull’s body and his head raised, looking back to the
rear of the animal, where a cowgirl is standing, holding out her arms
to catch his flying figure as soon as his feat is concluded. Another
cowgirl, at the extreme left, seems to be suspended from the bull’s
horns, which pass under her armpits, while she catches hold further up.
However, she is not being tossed, but is taking position preliminary to
leaping over the bull’s back. Both the man and the women wear striped
boots and bracelets; the women are apparently distinguished by their
white skin, short drawers, yellow sashes embroidered with red, and the
red-and-blue diadems around their brows.[5] On the opposite wall a
similar scene was pictured; among its stucco fragments was found the
representation of the arm and shoulder of a woman grasping a bull by
the horns. The fragmentary representation of another woman and man was
also found.
[Illustration: PLATE 1
Bull-grappling Scene. Wall-painting from Knossos. Museum of Candia.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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