Item description
- Object: A gold attachment in the form of a human headed bull
- Date: Bronze Age to Early Iron Age
- Origin: Not recorded, but certainly Western Asia. A Caucasian origin has been suggested.
- Dimensions: 41.3 mm long
- Weight: 13.1 g
The object takes the form of a recumbent human-headed animal in sheet gold, with a section of fragmentary silver sheet attached to the base which has a central hole and what appears to be the remains of an iron attachment. The object is modelled in the round in sheet gold and the head is that of a bearded male and it is facing forwards. He wears what might be a pointed hat or helmet. The posture, with the forelegs folded back underneath it identifies the body as being an unguligrade animal, a class that includes horses, deer, and cattle, and it is almost certain that the latter is meant here – the creature is a human-headed bull.
Human-headed bulls play a major role in ancient Western Asiatic mythology. As a rule of thumb, the Bronze Age examples are wingless, as here, but once into the first millennium BC wings become normal. On this basis a date before the early first millennium BC seems most likely, however, the base of the object appears to retain a broken and very badly corroded iron peg which seems to be integral of the object and which would thus indicate a more probable date in the early to mid-first millennium BC. The body of the human-headed bull is worked in sheet gold, made in two halves with a central solder seam. The facial and other details appear to have been worked freehand and the use of small chasing tools is clearly seen in the photo right. This type of construction and mode of decoration is consistent with what we would expect in the ancient world, but does not allow us to determine whether an early first millennium date is indicated rather than a Bronze Age one.
Particularly noteworthy is the repair to the back of the body. A missing section has been replaced with thin sheet gold. This patch is functional, but there was no attempt to make it unobtrusive around its edge or by replicating the little chased lines representing the hair on the animal’s back. The repair seems to be ancient and its cursory nature indicates that it was probably carried out following damage, perhaps after its original manufacture. The underside is attached to a section of silver sheet by means of a sheet gold cylinder that extends vertically from the animal, passes through a hole in the silver and is then splayed out. There is also the remains of what appears to be a vertical, central iron rod, extensively corroded. The flat silver sheet has a fractured edge and its original form and extent is uncertain. The gold human-headed bull was presumably originally a decorative mount on a silver object of some sort although the function of the iron component is unclear. The silver shows extensive cracking and internal corrosion which indicates considerable age.
In summary, the undersigned is convinced of the antiquity of this object and of its Western Asiatic origin. The mode of manufacture is consistent with manufacture in the Bronze Age, a date perhaps also suggested by the lack of wings, but the iron component would be more expected in the Early Iron Age. The patched repair on the back of the animal appears to be ancient, suggesting that the object had considerable use in antiquity – whatever its function. It is perhaps not impossible that the gold human-headed bull, decorating a silver vessel or other object, was made in the Early Bronze Age, and then buried, rediscovered and re-used.