Where is East?

Bull fighting of some type or another goes way back. This is from Crete, from the Minoan civilisation.

Well worth a visit and because it's a package destination for beach lovers flights and accommodation are fairly cheap, from Europe anyway.

Sorry, just noticed you'd already mentioned the Minoans, but both Spain and Crete were part of the Roman Empire and links, such as trade, probably went back much further than that.

There's also these stories. Mortimer is a raven, who only says 'Nevermore,' but it's not so gothic as Poe's.

I would love to visit Spain and Italy!!!

Izzy, if you put right after the first "img" a space and the words "width=500" A2k will resize the image to fit the page. Very cute image.

like this [img width=500]

width=700

Some places in Spain are best avoided. You can blame us for that.

The Minoans practiced bull-leaping, where a young man or young woman stood in front of a charging bull, lept over its horns and did a handspring off its back. The bull represented the Moon because of its crescent-shaped horns. Once a month the Sun leaps upon the moon and devours it. In the Minoan civilization the Sun was transformed into the god, whereas in past cultures it generally represented the goddess, but at any rate the Sun was the whole or Zoe. In this case-I believe-the moon (phases) would have represented the Incarnate biological living and dying god-being, bios. So I believe that by leaping over the moon there was an identification with the whole, i.e., the God.

The whole (holiness) is a transcendent consciousness that can be witnessed or experienced but not conceived of. One can imagine that these bull-leapers would have to be in a sort of transcendent consciousness to avoid injury.

Deep Look • PBS
You've Heard of a Murder of Crows. How About a Crow Funeral?
https://www.facebook.com/pbs/videos/880243115493602/

Or they would have to be experienced in playing with bulls so they knew how to interact with them in a playful way instead of fearing their aggression.

The word "Tor" in Chaldean is the word for king.

It is also the word for bull as in Torus or tyrannosaurus.

I like to think that the bulls in Minoan Crete were bred to be tame and participate in the dance rather than bred to be aggressive like their bull fighting counterparts.

I do not know for sure, though, leaping over bulls would require some refined acrobatic skills.

I think the significance of the Minoan bull-leaping was that this was a powerful religious ritual and not an athletic performace. It seems to me that the metaphorical and mythical religious significance of Minoan bull- leaping is lost in modern bullfighting in Mexico and Spain. The symbolic value and connection is totally lost and buried.

The bull rituals of Crete are linked, through religion, to the cow reverence in India.

Ah-hahahahahahahahaha . . .

You just make this sh*t up as you go along.

Have you got a source for that, or is it just an idea? You really shouldn't post thoughts as if they're facts. This is from short lived BBC teatime drama Atlantis.

At least he doesn't go blubbing to Beth every time he gets a bloody nose. Cobbler and I may disagree, but at least he's got the courage to admit his own mistakes, and fight his own battles.

That post of mine you got her to report is still there btw.

As you've not got anything constructive to say on this thread you can have another little cry.

Actually, I reported it, and then Beth decided on her own to report it. There is a new dispensation here, and the grown-ups don't call people names when they have run out of rhetorical options, such as you usually do. It's hilarious to think of a little you thinking he can give anyone here a bloody nose. Oh . . . ow . . . Izzy just threw another handful of electrons at me.

Ah-hahahahahahahahahahaha . . .

Many pre-Bronze Age Neolithic cultures existed as far back as 7000 BC in Eastern Europe, Crete, Southern Turkey (Catal Hüyük, Anatolia), Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Indus Valley. They seemed to have in common the worship of the goddess or the androgynous goddess/god and had various animal symbols such as the bull and cow, lion, and snake representing aspects of Moon and Sun, themselves, of course, representing the archetypes or elementary ideas of the psyche. Different geographical areas expressed these archetypes in different variations or local ideas. However, the bull and cow seem to have been held in religious esteem in many cultures including Old Europe, Southern turkey, Mesopotamia, Crete, and the Indus Valley, where cattle are still considered sacred.

I believe that bullfighting still practiced in Mexico and Spain directly stems from the bull worship of the Neolithic, though all religious significance has been lost. Likewise, remnants of the Goddess worship still persists in Catholicism as the Madonna.

And excellent work on the subject is, The Myth of the Goddess: Evolution of an Image
by Anne Baring and Jules Cashford

Various works by Joseph Campbell are also useful on the subject. One I especially like is, The Inner Reaches of Outer Space- Metaphor as Myth and as Religion