Kneeling Bull: A 5,000-year-old hybrid creature from Iran with a mysterious purpose

This 5,000-year-old silver figurine depicts a bull kneeling in a human-like pose and holding a spouted vessel. It was made in southern Mesopotamia by someone from the Proto-Elamite culture, the oldest civilization in Iran, and was likely used in a ritual or ceremony.

The bull is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It stands 6.4 inches (16.3 centimeters) tall and was made from 98.5% pure silver, according to a 1970 study by then-Met conservator Kate Lefferts. Inside the hollow figurine, Lefferts found five limestone pebbles, which were likely included by the artist to create a rattling sound. Fiber adhered to the statue was made from animal yarn.

In a 1970 study, Donald Hansen, then a fine arts professor at New York University, described the figurine as a remarkable blend of part-human and part-animal characteristics. The bovine head, complete with curved horns, rests atop human-like shoulders, and the creature is clothed in a decorated robe that covers its kneeling legs. The bull's outstretched arms are human-like but end in hooves that hold a vessel. The figurine does not have a flat base, Hansen noted, which means it could not have stood on its own on a hard surface.

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The figurine was made in Elam, an ancient region that corresponds to modern-day southwestern Iran. This area was the seat of the Proto-Elamite, an early Near East civilization in the Copper Age. The Proto-Elamites invented cylinder seals — cylinders that were engraved with figural scenes and were used for administrative purposes — many of which depict animals in human-like poses. The Kneeling Bull was likely made in this Proto-Elamite tradition of creating mythical-but-realistic-looking animal-human hybrids.

It is unclear why someone decided to make the Kneeling Bull five millennia ago. But the limestone pebbles inside the statuette and the fabric adhering to it suggest it was used in a ritual or ceremony, according to Hansen. It may have even been a "foundation figurine." These items were intentionally buried during the construction of Proto-Elamite temples to symbolically mark sacred ground. If the Kneeling Bull was created as a foundation figurine, it was never meant to be seen again.