Ox

The long, thick neck supports this animal’s heavy head, which looks forward. Long horns sweep sideways and curve upward at the tips from their position on the poll of the head. The muzzle is short. The eyes are applied dots and the nostrils are impressed pits. The wide, incised mouth gives the impression of being open. A short jaw joins the heavy throat and neck. The neck is pinched into a sharp edge extending from the throat to between the front legs. The back and hindquarters are very long, supported by stubby, splaying legs tapered to rounded points. The thick tail hangs halfway to the ground, like an undocked sheep’s tail. The absence of genitalia suggests that this is an ox, rather than a bull. Almost all known Geometric period bronze cattle votives come from either Kabirion in Boiotia or Olympia, which has yielded the majority (1). In style and technique, this ox has affinities with animal figurines of the Argive-Olympian bronze-casting school, which remained active at Olympia from the late ninth century to the end of the seventh century BCE (2). NOTES: 1. On the Elean school of figurine production at Olympia, see J.-L. Zimmermann, Les chevaux de bronze dans l’art géométrique grec (Mainz, 1989) 86-90, pls. 12-16; on cattle, see esp., 87 n.196 and 310 n.16. On bronze casting at Olympia, see T. Andrews, Bronzecasting at Geometric Period Olympia and Early Greek Metals Sources (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis University, 1994) 60-134. For Bronze cattle figurines at the Kabirion sanctuary in Boeotia, see B. Schmalz, Metallfiguren aus dem Kabirenheiligtum bei Theben: Die Statuetten aus Bronze und Blei (Berlin, 1980) 11-44, nos. 1-126, pls. 1-6. 2. On the Argive-Olympian workshop at Olympia, see W.-D. Heilmeyer, Frühe olympische Bronzefiguren: Die Tiervotive, Olympische Forschungen 12 (Berlin, 1979) 73-86, pls. 28-49. Tamsey Andrews and David G. Mitten