ROMAN FIGURINE

43

A copper-alloy figurine of a three-horned bull, Roman in date. The bull is standing and its legs are incomplete due to wear. It measures 60.6mm in length from nose to tail. The head is triangular in shape and 22.2mm in length, 22.5mm in width and 15.8mm in thickness. The bull has two pointed ears projecting from the side of the head at right angles, beneath two projecting tapering horns and in the centre of the head, between these, is the remains of a third worn horn. The forehead is flat and has a central longitudinal groove running down it. The eyes are slightly protruding with groove delimiting them. The snout it short and rounded with the nostrils depicted there is a horizontal groove representing the mouth beneath these. The neck of the bull is thick and undulating with transverse mouldings demonstrating its muscular nature. The body is rectangular in shape and narrow, it ia c36.5mm in length, 10.9mm in width across its centre and 12.8mm in width across its hindquarters. It is c15mm in depth. Wrapped around the centre of the body there is a broad transverse decorative band, 5.6mm in width, delimited by grooves, this band contains moulded oval shapes with circular indentations in their centres alternate with a cross-shaped mouldings. The hind quarters of the bull are slighly rounded and the tail is to one side with its tip resting on the bulls back, as if it is vigourously swishing its tail from side to side. The bull has large testicles hanging between the hind legs and a slight moulding represening the phallus in the centre of the belly. The forelegs have muscular shoulders and one leg is slighly raised, both are incomplete. The hindlegs are straight and one is again slightly more forward than the other. It therefore appears that the bull has been depicted walking. Martin Henig (pers comm 11/2005) has also seen an image of this figurine and he comments that, "The great interest of your particular bronze is that he wears a broad band, a 'dorsuale' around him which suggests he has been formally prepared for sacrifice. One generally thinks of three-horned bulls as devine, thereomorphic substitutes for deity. This is a sacrificial animal like those familiar from State reliefs like the Suovetaurilia relief in the Louvre, cf.D.E.E.Kleiner, Roman Sculpture (New Haven and London 1992),pp.141-2 fig.117 and the fragmentary Ravenna relief cf D.Strong, Roman Art (2nd edn ,New Haven and London 1988),p.110 fig.55. You can also see one around the belly of a pig on a nicolo intaglio from Old Penrith (Martin Henig in P.S.Austen, Bewcastle and Old Penrith. A Roman Outpost Fort and Frontier Vicus (Cumberland and Westmorland Research Series 6,1991)pp.178-9 fig 81 no.614." Other references with three horned bulls include a three horned bull known from Colchester, although it is made from pipe-clay (Green 1976, p217, PLXIX, a, b). Green (1976, 32) remarks that the three-horned bull was a well-known animal-monster in Gallo-Roman iconography, the three horns being to increase its power. Other examples suggested by Martin Henig include, in M Henig, Susan Read, Leslie Cram, published in Britannia 17 (1986),pp.346-7, the Cookham head citing the bronzes from Jewry Wall, Leicester and Devizes as well as the pipeclay Colchester figure. See also S.Boucher, Recherches sur les Bronzes Figures de Gaule Pre-Romaine et Romaine (Rome ,1976) pp.170-171 pl.65 figs 313 and 314 respectively from Avrigny and Besancon.