Bronze
1st c. AD
Empúries (L’Escala – Alt Empordà)
Oxen and bulls have long been significant in the cultures, mythologies and ancient religions of the Near East and the Mediterranean region. They are still present in popular culture and the works of renowned artists today.
In the Roman world we find several variants of rituals and sacrifices in which oxen and bulls were the prominent element. From the taurobolia of the mystery cults, in which the blood of the sacrificed bull fell on the initiate, to the best-known purification sacrifice called suovetaurilia, in which a pig (sus), a sheep (ovis) and a bull (taurus) were sacrificed.
A bucranium is a representation of the skull bones of an ox or bull, usually with garlands linking the horns, in the same way as when the animal was being prepared for sacrifice. Examples like the one we present here, made of bronze, are well known everywhere. There are several from Empúries, where this example came from, and we find identical examples in various parts of the empire. It has a flat back, as, together with representations of paterae, cornucopias and other liturgical elements, they were applied to smooth bronze plates, forming friezes that adorned altars.
A well-known example comes from Ercavica in the province of Cuenca. It is a plaque about 80 cm long topped by a cyma. The elements applied to it are an aspersorium; a bonnet or mitre; a simpulum or ladle; a jug and a bucranium practically identical to ours.
This bucranium, along with another very similar one, is part of the early Emporitan collection of our museum and can be dated to the 1st century AD. In the 1982 excavation of the Empúries forum, two more and a cornucopia were discovered. They would have been part of the altar ornamentation of one the temples in that area of the town.
