Adult stocky mountain goat standing on four
short legs. Medium-size and curving
backward
horns, exceptionally long beard, rounded
nose,
both ears pointing towards the rear, short and
hanging down tail.
Both male and female goats have beards;
from
the absence of genitalia on this figurine and
bearing in mind that artists in antiquity almost
always made a clear point of indicating with
precision the gender of an animal, we may
assume that this is a female goat.
The surface of this piece has acquired a light
green patina, interrupted by spotty light white
and green calcite deposits; there is a certain
wear
all over the exterior of the statuette, an
indication of its great age.
The domestic goat (Capra aegagrus hircus) is
a
subspecies originating from the wild goat of
southwest Asia and Eastern Europe.
Domestic
goats are one of the oldest domesticated
species
and for thousands of years they have been
used
for their milk, meat, hair, and skins over much
of
the world. Goats were worshipped in both
their
natural caprine form and under a phallic
appearence throughout Greece, Italy and
Egypt
during most of the antiquity. The most
plausible
reason for their ithyphallic embodiment and
adoration seems to have originated from the
goat’s increased sexual urge and amazing
reproductive ability, where a male goat is
deemed capable of fertilizing around 150
females. The hugely popular Greek god Pan
was
also portrayed as having goat characteristics,
along being the protector deity of flocks,
pastures and quite naturally goats. Besides
Pan,
the Greek god Dionysus, also in his Roman
appellative of Bacchus, was equally and
closely
related to goats. Cultist rites associated with
his
worship were characterized by maniacal
dancing
to the sound of loud music and crashing
cymbals, in which the revelers, called
Bacchantes,
whirled, screamed, became drunk and incited
one another to greater and greater ecstasy.
The
rite climaxed in a performance of frenzied
feats
of strength and madness, such as uprooting
trees and tearing a goat apart, an act called in
ancient Greek “sparagmos” and eating the
goat’s
flesh raw, an act called “omophagia”. This
latter
rite was a sacrament during which the
participants assumed the strength and
character
of the god by symbolically eating the raw
flesh
and drinking the blood of his symbolic
incarnation, in this case the goat. Having
symbolically eaten his body and drunk his
blood,
the celebrants became possessed by
Dionysus.
Centuries later ancient Romans during the
feast
of Bacchanalia, in honor of Bacchus, would
also
tear apart a goat and eat it alive. Guests to
the
sacred rites would prepare a white goat for
the
ceremony much in advance, cleaning the
predestined animal’s coat and painting its
horns
gold. At the point of blind intoxication,
celebrants would apparently turn on the
sacrificial goat, tear it to pieces limb from limb
and devour the raw meat, rejoicing that the
consumption of divine flesh and blood
signified
Bacchus’ mythic death and rebirth.
Among the remains of the ancient city of
Banias,
located in Northern Israel at the foot of mount
Hermon, a cult structure has been excavated
which was erected on the purpose for the
burial
of the remains of the sacred goats related to
the
god Pan, the principal divinity of the area.
Excavations in Central Asia and in particular in
the area of Afganistan brought to the light
ancient ritual goat-burials that show a
predominant religious significance of the goat
in
the area. These findings have been used as
evidence for a goat-cult of Asia originating
either
in the Neolithic or Bronze Ages.
This rare artifact is a hollow cast lead
antiquity in
the form of a standing goat. There is the
possibility that the pegs on which the
figurine’s
hooves are attached to may have once
supported
wheels, which would in consequence have
made
this piece being used as a toy; it is though
much
more likely that these pegs were secured into
a
wooden fitting or joined into a flat base, as
this
figurine was in all probability a votive offering.
There is a cunning similarity between this
figurine and the bronze fragmentary figurine
of
an ibex discovered in Iran, which has been
dated
in the period 1900 to 1300 BC., a number of
six
hundred years ranging between the Middle
Bronze and the Early Iron Age.
This turbulent period is dominated by
conflicts in
the area between the Elamite state of
southeastern Iran and the neighboring
Mesopotamia. Susa becomes one of the
most
important sites during this era, a locus of
cultural
and commercial interchange between the
mountain folk of the Zagros and the
inhabitants
of the Mesopotamian plain. This example
though
seems to be dating to a later period,
somewhere
between the years 1300 and 600 B.C.
- (CB.009)
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