Bulls and Bees in the Bugonia Ritual
bugonia ritual, bulls and bees
It was written the Minoan said the bull (apis) sprouted bees. I could not figure out how...until now? ... Trace
"...Bees were special and peculiar to the ancients. Their presence in the myth dates back to times much earlier than Rome. They were of considerable importance in Egyptian and Minoan beliefs. Then they fascinated authors such as Publius Virgil Maro or Pliny the Elder. The bees had a divine element in them and were surrounded by a mystical aura of mystery. It is best expressed by the so-called Bugonia ritual:
It was common in the ancient world to believe that bee swarms were born from the bodies of dead bulls. This is where the aforementioned name comes from – Bugonia, in Greek βοῦς, meaning cattle, and γονή, gonad – means so “born from cattle”. This ritual, as a natural or man-made event, was aimed at creating or restoring a bee swarm. In the literature of the Roman period, we have much evidence of this process. One of the most famous is the one from Book IV of Georgics Virgil:
Sudden and wondrous to tell — throughout the paunch, amid the molten flesh of the oxen, bees buzzing and swarming forth from the ruptured sides, then trailing in vast clouds, till at last on a treetop they stream together, and hang in clusters from the bending boughs1.
The birth of bees also has a religious significance in a deeper context. The Romans believed they were born from the souls of deceased farmers and other hard-working people. In another work by Virgil, Aeneid, in book VI, the father of the title character Aeneas, Anchizes in Hades, addresses the issue of metempsychosis (Greek for the journey of souls), i.e. a kind of reincarnation. Intriguingly, he talks about it to his son as he watches bee swarms in charming groves near the Lethe River (one of the five rivers of Hades that caused memory loss when drinking).
Hence the great respect of the Romans for bees. Ancient beekeepers cared for their proper treatment. Pliny the Elder advised, for example, that “people must wash clean before they take the honey”2. These animals also appeared to be human for purely experimental reasons. The organization of the swarm and diligence were admired. For some, such as the aforementioned Pliny, they were even a model of an ideal society worth imitating. The Greek philosopher Plato was rather not inspired by bees when writing his State, but ancient authors found similarities between the Platonic politea system and the bee swarm.
By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80863490 - amulet found in an APIS tomb
APIS CULT? Serapeum of Saqqara
The Apis (bull) cult dates back to very early times, possibly founded by pharaoh Menes, around 3,000 BC.
The Serapeum of Saqqara was the ancient Egyptian burial place for sacred bulls of the Apis cult at Memphis. It was believed that the bulls were incarnations of the god Ptah, which would become immortal after death as Osiris-Apis, a name which evolved to Serapis (Σέραπις) in the Hellenistic period, and Userhapi (ⲟⲩⲥⲉⲣϩⲁⲡⲓ) in Coptic. It is one of the animal catacombs in the Saqqara necropolis, which also contains the burial vaults of the mother cows of the Apis, the Iseum.[2] The Greater Vaults of the Serapeum, known for the large sarcophagi of the mummified bulls, are
accessible to visitors.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Serapeum_of_Saqqara&oldid=1292122834
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010021493
Bulls and Poseidon’s
festival
Poseidon had multiple festivals throughout the year, often marked by certain seasonal changes. Not much is known about the particular festival which occurred around the winter solstice.
The festival likely involved feasting and wine. Based on ancient descriptions of other events held in Poseidon’s honor, historians can make educated guesses about the winter solstice festival.
In the Odyssey, one such festival was mentioned by Homer, who wrote, “The people were on the shore, sacrificing jet-black bulls to the blue-crested god who shakes the earth. There were nine parties, five hundred sitting in each party, and nine bulls were laid out before each.”
After sacrificing the bulls, Homer described how the festival attendants would say prayers to Poseidon, eat their share of the sacrificial animals, and drink large quantities of wine.
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