“Playing with the Bull” in the arts of Ancient Eurasia
Résumé
The paper studies the artistic representations of humans playing with bulls in Eurasia.
It considers Neolithic representations of Chatal-Höyük, as well as Bronze Age Levant, Middle East,
Indus (seals), and Central Asia (seal, petroglyphs). The proposed interpretation is related to plays
and games with bulls, bull-leaping, tauromachy considered as mock hunts, rather as sports, possibly
ritual. Representations occurring inside constructed cultural spaces are especially important in
a time of domestications of wild species of bovids. It is suggested that this change is connected
with sedentism, with the appearance of narration, and with symbolism in art.