THE BULL JUMPERS
1500 bc 21" x 13.5" x 1/2"
Item #MF08
The highly advanced Minoan civilization existed in the Aegean sea from about 3000 b.c. until its collapse around 1450 b.c.. Archaeological evidence comes from the Minoan center on the island of Crete, where the famous Palace of Knossos has revealed a wealth of exquisite wall frescoes, vases, and other art objects. Still more evidence comes from the volcanic island of Thera, where archaeologists began to uncover a vast underground city 30 years ago, estimating that teams of archaeologists will need 300 more years to reveal and study the large quantity of finds.
As far as written history goes, knowledge of the Minoans reached us from Egypt, and from Plato, whose ancestor knew the great Athenian statesman Solon, who traveled to Egypt in 559 b.c. and heard the strange tale of the land of Keftiu, that “disappeared in a single day and night... and was sunk beneath the sea”, and put and end to a culture far ahead of its time.
“Keftiu”, hellenized to Atlantis by Solon; a land very real to the Egyptians, but of mythological proportions to the Greeks. So great was Atlantis that Plato had to shift its location to “beyond the Pillars of Hercules” (outside of the Straits of Gibraltar) which in classical times was the standard location used in stories about lands far away in distance and/or time.
Plato wrote about Atlantis in 2 of his dialogues, describing a civilization very much like the Minoan one which archaeologists have been uncovering on Thera and Crete.
• Thera and Atlantis both experienced severe earthquakes and a volcanic eruption(s) so huge that only 5 islets, some no more than rocks, remain of Thera, and of Atlantis remained “small islets, only the bones of a wasted body”.
• Both were wealthy, highly developed cultures, concerned with art, beauty, entertainment and personal comforts.
• Plato spoke of bulls hunted with ropes in a temple in Atlantis. Archaeological evidence has shown the Minoans built bull rings, hunting the animals with nooses, (the only example of this kind of “bullfight” in world history) and practiced “bull jumping”, either a sport or a religious ritual. These practices gave rise to the legend of the Minotaur secured within the labyrinth.
• Atlantis was a powerful thalossocracy, and ruled areas “larger than Asia and Libya”, with “the docks full of tiremes and naval stores... the largest of harbors were full of vessels and merchants coming from all parts”. The Minoan area of sea control and economic influence included all of North Africa, the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. Their fleet was unsurpassed in its size.
• Plato described Atlantis as alternating rings of sea and land, with a palace in the center “bull’s eye”. Interestingly, the remnants of post eruption Thera are circular around a wide lagoon, with another small island in the center of the lagoon. Perhaps Egyptians or other ancient travelers visited Thera after the destruction and began the legend of the rings of Atlantis. Looking 70 miles south to crescent shaped Crete, the ancient traveler could have easily assumed the ring system reached as far.
• From the quarries of Atlantis- “one kind of stone was white, another black, and a third red”. The first sight of Thera that tourists going there today have are the sheer cliffs remaining when the rest of the island dropped into the sea, and these cliffs are a breathtaking mix of white, black and red stone.
• Archaeologists have found a sophisticated system of sewers and water pipes in Crete and Thera. Private homes had flush toilets and bathtubs. Minoans heated their houses and had hot and cold running water from hydrothermal vents. Plato describes the “bringing up of two springs of water from beneath the earth...fountains, one of cold and another of hot water...there were the king’s baths and also the baths of private persons.”
Were the Minoans the people of Atlantis? Many archaeologists believe so. The total destruction of Thera, the heat blast and tidal waves which likely destroyed the great shipping industry on Crete; earthquakes, and the agricultural crisis caused by ash fallout, combined to put an end to the might Minoans, and in a short space of time, 50 years or less, the great Minoan civilization had already started to become a legend.
The Bull Jumpers fresco from the Palace of King Minos at Knossos, Crete, is a representation of an enduring Minoan mystery known as “Bull Sports”, although it may not be a sport at all but a religious ritual. The bull was a sacred animal to the Minoans, and sculptured representations of horns, reliefs of bulls, pottery and drinking vessels in the shape of bulls have been found around Knossos. The Minoans usually painted male figures in a reddish color, and female in white, and preferred profiles like the Egyptians with whom they traded. However, their art is much more fluid and natural than the stiff Egyptian portrayals, as is evidenced in the movement of the three figures and the bull. The right figure appears to be on his toes, with his long hair lifted slightly off his back as would happen with jumping. The other male figure appears to be completely of the ground and riding on the bull’s horns, and the female on the back of the bull has limbs and hair in full motion as she soars over the top of the bull. The centered simplicity of design on the vibrant background, and the contra-movement shown by the left moving of the bull and the right moving of the jumper shows us an artistic sense far beyond that of any other art of this era..
