page_title: Aurochs
section_title: Cultural significance
hierarchical_section_title: Aurochs / Cultural significance
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Graffito Bos Primigenius Grotta del Romito (prov. Cosenza).
context_page_description: The aurochs, also known as urus or ure, is an extinct species of large wild cattle that inhabited Asia, Europe, and North Africa. It is the ancestor of domestic cattle. The species survived in Europe until 1627, when the last recorded aurochs died in the Jaktorów Forest, Poland.
  During the Neolithic Revolution, which occurred during the early Holocene, at least two aurochs domestication events occurred: one related to the Indian subspecies, leading to zebu cattle, and the other related to the Eurasian subspecies, leading to taurine cattle. Other species of wild bovines were also domesticated, namely the wild water buffalo, gaur, wild yak and banteng. In modern cattle, many breeds share characteristics of the aurochs, such as a dark colour in the bulls with a light eel stripe along the back, or a typical aurochs-like horn shape.
context_section_description: The aurochs was an important game animal appearing in both Paleolithic European and Mesopotamian cave paintings, such as those found at Lascaux and Livernon in France. An archaeological excavation in Israel found traces of a feast held by the Natufian culture around 12,000 B.P., in which three aurochs (and numerous tortoises) were eaten, this appears to be an uncommon occurrence in the culture and was held in conjunction with the burial of an older woman, presumably of some social status. A 2012 archaeological mission in Sidon, Lebanon, discovered the remains numerous animal species, including an aurochs, and a few human bones and plant foods, dating from around 3700 B.P., which appear to have been buried together in some sort of necropolis. A 1999 archaeological dig in Peterborough, England, uncovered the skull of an aurochs. The front part of the skull had been removed, but the horns remained attached. The supposition is that the killing of the aurochs in this instance was a sacrificial act.
  Also during antiquity, the aurochs was regarded as an animal of cultural value. Aurochs are depicted on the Ishtar Gate. In the Peloponnese there is a 15th-century B.C. depiction on the so-called violent cup of Vaphio, of hunters trying to capture with nets three wild bulls being probably aurochs, in a possibly Cretan date palm stand. The one of the bulls throws one hunter on the ground while attacking the second with its horns. The cup despite the older perception of being Minoan seems to be Mycenaean. Greeks and Paeonians were hunting aurochs (wild oxen/bulls) and used their huge horns as trophies, cups for wine, and offers to the gods and heroes. For example, according to Douglas (1927), the ox, mentioned by Samus, Philippus of Thessalonica and Antipater, killed by Philip V of Macedon on the foothills of mountain Orvilos, was actually an aurochs; Philip offered the horns which were 105 cm long and the skin to a temple of Hercules.
  They survived in the wild in Europe till late in the Roman Empire and in 1847 were believed to be occasionally captured and exhibited in shows (venationes) in Roman amphitheatres such as the colosseum. Aurochs horns were often used by Romans as hunting horns. Julius Caesar described aurochs in Gaul:
  ... those animals which are called uri. These are a little below the elephant in size, and of the appearance, colour, and shape of a bull. Their strength and speed are extraordinary; they spare neither man nor wild beast which they have espied. These the Germans take with much pains in pits and kill them. The young men harden themselves with this exercise, and practice themselves in this sort of hunting, and those who have slain the greatest number of them, having produced the horns in public, to serve as evidence, receive great praise. But not even when taken very young can they be rendered familiar to men and tamed. The size, shape, and appearance of their horns differ much from the horns of our oxen. These they anxiously seek after, and bind at the tips with silver, and use as cups at their most sumptuous entertainments.
  — Julius Caesar. Gallic War Commentaries, Chapter 6.28
   
  The Hebrew Bible contains numerous references to the untameable strength of the re'em, translated as "bullock" or "wild-ox" in Jewish translations and translated rather poorly in the King James Version as "unicorn", but recognized from the last century by Hebrew scholars as the aurochs.
  When the aurochs became rarer, hunting it became a privilege of the nobility and a sign of a high social status. The Nibelungenlied describes Siegfried killing aurochs: "Dar nâch sluoc er schiere einen wisent und einen elch / starker ûwer viere und einen grimmen schelch" (Nibelungenlied 937.1-2), meaning "After that, he quickly defeated one wisent and one elk, four strong aurochs, and one terrible schelch." Aurochs horns were commonly used as drinking horns by the nobility, which led to the fact that many aurochs horn sheaths are preserved today (albeit often discoloured). The drinking horn at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, given to the college 
caption: Cro-Magnon graffito of Bos primigenius in Grotta del Romito, Papasidero, Italy
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