Attributes of Greek River Gods

[Molinari]

Ok, so this is just getting ridiculous:

17,000-14,000 BC, an ithyphallic (?) man-faced bull (or bull man) from the La Pasiega Cave in Spain.  It is the only anthropomorph that all the archaeologists agree is actually an anthropomorph.

Gambutas (p. 216) described him as "playing a harp" but I'm fairly certain there weren't harps back then .

[Taras]

Nick, I post something here, we will deepen the rest of the issue in our beautiful mail exchange
Marija Gimbutas' Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe is a dated book (1974)
She revised many of her theories 15 years later, in her work "The Language of the Goddess" (1989).
The cave painting from La Pasiega, Santander, here is dated 15.000-13.000 b.C., and is described as "horned serpent", as "symbol of embodied energy and stimulator of the process of becoming". (pag.277-280).

In the same work Gimbutas reads the jar lid figure posted on reply#34 of this discussion as an owl-shaped head, not bull.



It is described as a depiction of the prehistoric bird-goddess.
I attach a pic from page 53, where the the authoress illustrates the evolution of this iconography, from 5200 to 4500 b.C.

Best
Nico

[Lloyd Taylor]

This makes sense ...  amongst other things the disposition of the head feathers (upward oriented) versus the forward facing horns of the man-faced bull (refer image at reply #51) point to the distinction between the two types on artistic renderings.

[Molinari]

The bird thing makes sense, I see it now.

About the "horned serpent" I'm not so sure.  For instance, why use a different color for the "tail" of the serpent?  And there are many examples of ithyphallic bull-men, as you pointed out, so it would be consistent with the art of the time.

I'll have to investigate what others have said on the issue.  The face is somewhat serpent-like, though.

[slokind]

Oh, I hadn't noticed that lion-headed bird of prey attacking a man-headed bull on the famous Early Dynastic "Standard" (inlaid box) from Ur in the BM, by far my favorite Early Bronze Age Sumerian object.  I think that its inter;preation must include the significance (whatever it is) of the carnivore attacking a herbivore (also a herd animal, perhaps), not simply a river personification.
Pat L.