Archaeology Magazine - December 1960 - 9

1. Typical example of the Nanyang reliefs, showing two bull-like animals locked in combat.
Bull

Grappling

Early

By Richard
The bull grappling of early Crete is well known from
the famous fresco painting found in the Palace of
Minos at Knossos. This scene, painted sometime before
1500 b.c., shows a young lady grasping the horns of a
charging bullr another person somersaulting along the
bull's spine, and still another standing behind the bull
to help the second person to the ground. Not so well
known, perhaps, are almost identical scenes of comparable age which have been found much closer to
China. These occur on seals and clay sealings from the
Indus Valley, and correspond so closely to the Cretan
portrayals of this subject that some relationship might be
suspected. Even less well known are the vigorous illustrations of bull grappling found in early Chinese reliefs.
The bull is an old and universal symbol of power and
violence, fertility and virility, and is thus understandably
ubiquitous in primitive representational art. The custom
of holding public contests between bulls or between bulls
and men is an ancient and widespread one. Its origin is
apparently to be sought in some form of nature worship,
and it almost always forms part of a ritual observance,
often connected with the fertility of crops. In China,
even in recent times, bulls made of earthenware or paper
symbolizedSpring, and beating them hastenéd the advent
of this season and its crops. Sometimes a real bull was
slain so that his vigor might pass into the newly planted
crops and bring about an abundant yield.
About thirty years ,ago numerous bas-reliefs of the
Han period were discovered in central China which
clearly demonstrate that the early Chinese practised bull
grappling. The accidental discovery in 1927 of a subterranean stone tomb near Nanyang in Honan Province
and subsequent finds in this region provide many examples of a Vigorous style of animal art from the latter
part of the Han dynasty (first and second centuries A.D.).
There is much pictorial material on stone from this
period in Shantung Province in the northeast and from
Szechwan Province in the southwest, but the Nanyang

Chinese

Reliefs

C Rudolph
reliefs are very different from those in other areas. The
most obvious differences are the greater freedom and
vigor of the draftsmanship and the large number of combat scenes between animals or men and animals in the
Nanyang reliefs. Although these bull-grappling scenes
do not exactly parallel those from Crete and the Indus
Valley, all of them probably had their origins in a similar ritualistic practice.
The Nanyang reliefs illustrating bull fighting or biill
grappling may be divided into two general types: contests between two animals, and contests between men and
animals. The word bull is used here in a general sense
to indicate a fierce male animal with general bovine
characteristicsranging from naturalistic to imaginary.
The first type, represented by at least six reliefs
(Figure 1), shows two bull-like beasts charging each
other or standing with interlocked horns. They are always winged and appear to have only one horn, which
may be the result of profile drawing. This type of bull
fighting still survives in some parts of China and several
descriptions of these contests exist. The most interesting
and detailed of these appears in a nineteenth-century
collection of miscellaneous notes, the Yung Hsien Chai
Pi Chi, by Ci en Ch'i-chih. The author lived for sixteen
years in a part of Chekiang Province where this type of
bull-fight was held every spring and autumn. A few
extracts will give a good idea of these contests as well as
of Ci en's powers of observation and wit:
On the day of the contest, thousands of people
"...
come to see it. The arena is four or five acres of cultivated ground. All along the edges of the field platforms, tables and stools are placed for the use of the
guests as well as for people from the villages, including
women, the old and the young. Hawkers selling cakes,
melons, fruit and tobacco come in swarms with much
hullabaloo and horseplay.
"When the bull comes to the arena he is led by a man
241

Archaeology Magazine - December 1960

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Archaeology Magazine - December 1960