Images of gods with zoomorphic and anthropogenic features - animal heads and human bodies - are found among different peoples.

A joint Australian-American expedition that studied cave paintings of primitive people in Australia and South Africa discovered more than five thousand Stone Age images, among which there are sketches of half-humans, half-animals - with the body of a lion and the head of a man or with the head of a bull and a human torso. The drawings of unknown creatures discovered by the expedition were made at least 32 thousand years ago. Cambridge anthropologist Christopher Chippendale and Sydney historian Paul Tacon, who studied ancient petroglyphs, came to the conclusion that primitive artists painted mysterious creatures “from life,” that is, they depicted what they saw with their own eyes. It is noteworthy that prehistoric Australians and Africans, who lived on different continents, decorated their caves with drawings of the same creatures.

In Australia, scientists have found images of centaurs, although it is reliably known that horses were not found on this remote continent. How the Australian aborigines managed to depict a horse with a human torso is unknown. It remains to be assumed that in time immemorial, hybrids of humans and animals really existed on our planet.

Probably all these mysterious creatures are the result of genetic experiments by aliens. Moreover, the hybrids created in vitro were intelligent. For example, the god Thoth was considered a scientist by the Egyptians:

The son of the god Cronus and Philyra, the centaur Chiron, trained by Apollo and Artemis in hunting, healing, music and divination, was the teacher of the heroes of Greek myths - Achilles, Asclepius, Castor, Polydeuces, Jason.

Centaurs in Greek mythology are creatures with the body of a horse and a human torso (there are also images of hybrids with the torso of a man and the body of a bull, donkey, sheep or goat).

According to Greek legends, centaurs lived in the mountains of Thessaly and Arcadia and were, with the exception of Chiron and Pholus, wild and violent creatures. One of the most famous acts of the centaurs was the attempt to kidnap Hippodamia, the bride of the Lapith king Pirithous. In the battle with the Lapiths they were defeated. Legends say that horse people came to Greece from the mountains, but due to an excessive craving for alcohol, they were expelled from Hellas by people.

In a superbly preserved Mayan fresco discovered in one of the temples of the city of Bonampak in the Mexican state of Chiapas, you can see strange gods with mandibles instead of mouths and crocodile faces. Similar images are found among the Olmecs, Toltecs, and Aztecs.

Before the creation of man, human-beast hybrids or animals endowed with intelligence were a kind of servants of the gods and performed some economic functions. In Egypt, near the village of Deir el-Medine, a settlement for the builders of the Theban necropolis was opened. Among them were scribes and artists who painted the walls of the tombs. Ancient Egyptian craftsmen left rough sketches and sketches of drawings made on clay fragments or limestone tiles, later called “ostracons” by the famous French Egyptologist Gaston Maspero. During excavations, about 5 thousand drawings were discovered depicting scenes from the life of the Egyptians. Many of them baffle scientists. For example, an Egyptian papyrus kept in the British Museum depicts jackals guarding kids. Both “shepherds” walk on their hind legs and carry baskets behind their backs. The procession is closed by a jackal playing the flute. In front of the whole group, a cat stands on its hind legs and chases the geese with a twig. Another drawing even depicts a “chess tournament” between a lion and a gazelle: they are sitting in chairs in front of the board; the lion bared its teeth, as if saying something, making a move; the gazelle “clasped its hands” and released the figure.

Francois Champollion, who was the first to decipher and read Egyptian hieroglyphs, believed that such drawings were a kind of political satire. But there is no evidence of the existence of this literary genre among the ancient Egyptians.

Some figurines depict mysterious animals that command people or dictate something to scribes.

People with a dog's head were also depicted on old Orthodox icons - St. Christopher

Pliny, Paul the Deacon, Marco Polo, and Adam of Bremen wrote about people with dog or jackal heads as real beings. Anubis, in the beliefs of the ancient Egyptians originally the god of death, the patron of the dead, as well as necropolises, funerary rites and embalming, was usually depicted in the guise of a wolf, a jackal or a man with the head of a jackal. The god of wisdom Thoth was depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or baboon, the goddess Sokhmet as a woman with the head of a lioness, etc. The killing of a sacred animal was punishable by death among the Egyptians. Sacred animals and birds were embalmed after death and buried in special cemeteries.

In the early 1960s, during the construction of a highway in Crimea, a bulldozer turned a stone “box” onto the surface of the earth. The workers opened the lid of the sarcophagus: it contained a human skeleton with the head of a ram, and the skeleton was solid, the head was integral with the skeleton. The road foreman called archaeologists, whose expedition was working nearby. They looked at the bones and decided that the road workers were playing a joke on them, and they immediately left. After making sure that the find did not represent any historical value, the workers razed the sarcophagus to the ground.

Archaeologists sometimes find ancient burials in which animal and human bones are mixed, as well as skeletons of various animals, and often the grave lacks a human head or contains an incomplete set of animal bones. It is believed that these are the remains of sacrificial gifts. But it is quite possible that these are hybrids created by aliens.

Unusual artifacts are discovered in many different areas of the world. Not far from Glauberg, a Celtic settlement of the 5th century BC was discovered in 1997. e. There, in a mound plundered in the Middle Ages, German archaeologists found a 1.8-meter-high statue of a Celtic leader. The warrior is depicted in chain mail, with a Roman-style shield. And the leader’s head is decorated with huge “bunny” ears.

It is curious that images of people with long ears are found quite often, and in areas significantly distant from each other. There are similar drawings on a rock near the Jordan River, on a burial box found in the Altai Mountains. Huge ears crown the heads of “stone women” in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and Khakassia, as well as Chinese figurines of demons.

Myths about anthropoid animals have been preserved among many peoples. In Greek mythology, the Minotaur, a monster with a human body and the head of a bull, was born of Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos, from a bull sent by Poseidon to Crete for slaughter. Minos refused to sacrifice the bull, then Poseidon instilled in Pasiphae an unnatural passion for the animal. The fruit of their relationship, the Minotaur, was imprisoned in an underground labyrinth built by Daedalus. Every year, seven young men and women were sacrificed to him, sent by the Athenians as a tax to Minos and as atonement for the murder of Minos’ son in Attica. A terrible monster devoured the unfortunate people. The Athenian prince Theseus voluntarily went to Crete among those destined to be devoured by the Minotaur, killed the monster and, with the help of the thread of the royal daughter Ariadne, who was in love with him, got out of the labyrinth.

Especially often images, reliefs and statues of bulls with human heads are found among the Assyrians and Persians.

The aliens conducted experiments on the hybridization of a variety of animals. The historian Eusebius, based on more ancient sources, describes the monsters that the gods created in time immemorial:

Human beings with goat thighs and horns on their heads; others are half people, half horses (centaurs); bulls with human heads; dog-like creatures with fish tails; horses with dog heads and other dragon-like creatures.

In 1850, the famous French archaeologist Auguste Marriet discovered huge vaulted crypts (so-called crypts) in the area of ​​the Saqqara pyramid, in which hundreds of sarcophagi, carved from solid pieces of granite, were preserved. Their dimensions surprised scientists: length - 3.85 meters, width - 2.25 meters, height - 2.5 meters, wall thickness - 0.42 meters, cover thickness 0.43 meters; the total weight of the “coffin” and the lid was about 1 ton.

Inside the sarcophagi were crushed animal remains mixed with a viscous liquid similar to resin. In some burials, small figurines with images of ancient gods were found. After studying fragments of bodies, Marriet came to the conclusion that they were hybrids of a wide variety of animals. The ancient Egyptians believed in life after death and were convinced that a living creature could only be reborn if its body was embalmed and retained its appearance. They were afraid of the creatures created by the gods and, in order to prevent the monsters from being resurrected in a new life, they dismembered their bodies into small pieces, placed them in coffins, filled them with resin, and covered them with massive lids on top.

During excavations in the Gobi Desert, the Belgian scientist Friedrich Meissner discovered a human skull with horns. At first, he assumed that the horns were somehow embedded in the skull, that is, they were transplanted, but studies by pathologists showed that these were natural formations: they formed and grew during the life of this creature.

Several human skulls with horns like this one were discovered in a burial mound in Bradford County, Pennsylvania, in the 1880s. With the exception of bony projections located about two inches above the eyebrows, the people to whom the skeletons belonged were anatomically normal, although they were seven feet tall. It was estimated that the bodies were buried around 1200 AD. The bones were sent to the American Exploration Museum in Philadelphia, where they happily disappeared, never to be seen again.

Similar skulls were found by an Israeli archaeological expedition led by Professor Chaim Rasmon during excavations of the ruins of Subeit. In the lowest cultural layers dating back to the Bronze Age, archaeologists discovered human skeletons whose skulls were crowned with horns. They were held in the skulls so firmly that experts could not come to a clear conclusion whether the horns grew naturally or were somehow “implanted.” Images and reliefs of people with horns are also found in other regions of the world, for example, in Peru.

Doctor of Biological Sciences P. Marikovsky, studying Stone Age rock paintings in the western spurs of the Dzungarian Alatau in the territory of Mesopotamia, discovered images of obvious mutants: mountain goats with two heads; goats with long tails like wolves; unknown animals with straight, stick-like horns; horses with humps like a camel; horses with long horns; camels with horns; centaurs.

Rock paintings, reliefs, sculptures depicting hybrid animals can be seen in different parts of the globe among different peoples. Particularly common are images of the sphinx - a creature with a human head and the body of some animal (lion, snake, dog, etc.), sometimes with the wings of an eagle. The Egyptians depicted three types of sphinxes: with the head of a man and the body of a lion, with the head of a ram and with the head of a falcon. The ancient Greeks created images of half-maidens and half-lionesses.

Perhaps the aliens conducted genetic experiments to create humanoids, as well as various hybrids of humans and animals in the Middle Ages. In the chronicles of the Mongols, curious evidence of unusual children has been preserved:

A khan named Sarva, who was the son of Kushal, the khan of Indian Magada, had the youngest of five sons with turquoise hair and flat arms and legs; his eyes closed from bottom to top...

Since Duva Sokhor had a single eye in the middle of his forehead, he could see at a distance of three nomads.

Medieval scientists reported about the birth of various freaks: A Pare, U. Aldrovandi, Lycosthenes. There is information about the birth of children with the head of a cat, dog, and also with the body of a reptile.

Currently, the media provides numerous information about the birth of deformed children with gills, with cat-like, vertically located pupils, cyclops with one eye in the forehead, with membranes between the fingers and toes, with green or blue skin. In March 2000, a message appeared that in India, in one of the hospitals in the city of Pollachi (Tamil Nadu), a “mermaid” was born - a girl with a fish tail instead of legs. She lived very briefly; her body was transferred to one of the medical institutions for study. In March 2001, the Ananova news agency reported that in India, near Parappanangadi, a strange baby was born to an ordinary sheep. The unusual lamb had no hair on its body, and its nose, eyes, mouth, tongue and teeth were similar to human ones, and its entire face generally resembled the face of a bald man in dark sunglasses. The mutant (or hybrid?) lived only a few hours after birth. Perhaps all these freaks are echoes of experiments conducted by aliens on people in the distant past. Another option cannot be ruled out - genetic experiments on our planet continue.

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« But, according to Philochorus, the Cretans reject this legend and say that the Labyrinth was an ordinary prison, where nothing bad was done to the prisoners and they were only kept on guard so that they would not escape, and that Minos organized hymn competitions in memory of Androgeus, and gave the winner a reward for Athenian teenagers who were for the time being kept in custody in the Labyrinth. The first competition was won by a military leader named Taurus, who at that time enjoyed the greatest confidence of Minos, a man of a rude and wild disposition, who treated teenagers arrogantly and cruelly. Aristotle in “The Government of Bottia” also makes it absolutely clear that he does not believe that Minos took the lives of teenagers: they, the philosopher believes, managed to grow old in Crete, performing slave service.»

According to the historian Demon, the commander Taurus started a battle with Theseus in the harbor and was killed. Plutarch cites information from various historians, from which one can glean that King Minos had such a military leader Taurus, who died in the war with the Athenians, and all other details are apparently a product of myth-making, as scientists of late antiquity believed.

According to Pausanias, his real name was Asterius(“starry”) - the son of Minos, defeated by Theseus.

On vases his body is dotted with stars or speckled with eyes; on a coin from Knossos he was depicted wearing a bull mask.

The goddess is mentioned in Mycenaean texts da-pu 2 -ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja (Laburinthoio Potnia, "Mistress of the Labyrinth").

Interpretations

According to one hypothesis, the myth of the Minotaur was borrowed from Phenicia, where Moloch was also depicted with a bull’s head and demanded human sacrifices. The killing of the Minotaur marks the destruction of his cult.

According to a number of modern historians, the history of the Minotaur is an encrypted narrative about the clash of Indo-European cultures with the cultures of the autochthonous “peoples of the sea” (who revered the bull), in which the Indo-Europeans turned out to be the winner.

In Mary Renault's novel Theseus, the sacrifice to the Minotaur is interpreted from a purely realistic point of view - from her point of view, the victims were forced to participate in the sacrifice - the “bull dance” (proto-corrida), images of which can be seen on Cretan frescoes.

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Excerpt characterizing the Minotaur

One evening, when the old countess, sighing and groaning, in a nightcap and blouse, without false curls, and with one poor tuft of hair protruding from under a white calico cap, was making prostrations for evening prayer on the rug, her door creaked, and Natasha ran in, shoes on her bare feet, also in a blouse and curlers. The Countess looked around and frowned. She finished reading her last prayer: “Will this coffin be my bed?” Her prayerful mood was destroyed. Natasha, red and animated, seeing her mother at prayer, suddenly stopped in her run, sat down and involuntarily stuck out her tongue, threatening herself. Noticing that her mother continued her prayer, she ran on tiptoe to the bed, quickly sliding one small foot over the other, kicked off her shoes and jumped onto the bed for which the countess was afraid that it might not be her coffin. This bed was tall, made of feather beds, with five ever-decreasing pillows. Natasha jumped up, sank into the feather bed, rolled over to the wall and began fiddling around under the blanket, laying down, bending her knees to her chin, kicking her legs and laughing barely audibly, now covering her head, now looking at her mother. The Countess finished her prayer and approached the bed with a stern face; but, seeing that Natasha had her head covered, she smiled her kind, weak smile.
“Well, well, well,” said the mother.
- Mom, we can talk, right? - Natasha said. - Well, once in a while, well, it will happen again. “And she grabbed her mother’s neck and kissed her under the chin. In her treatment of her mother, Natasha showed an outward rudeness of manner, but she was so sensitive and dexterous that no matter how she clasped her mother in her arms, she always knew how to do it in such a way that her mother would not feel pain, discomfort, or embarrassment.

The myth of the bull-headed Minotaur, who lives in a labyrinth and devours people, and of the brave Theseus, who defeated the monster and emerged unharmed from the labyrinth with the help of Ariadne’s thread.

Meaning of the name Minotaur

In Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a monster with the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull. The Minotaur was the fruit of the love of the Cretan queen Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos, and a bull sent by Poseidon himself. Due to the terrible appearance of the Minotaur, King Minos ordered the master Daedalus and his son Icarus to build a huge labyrinth in which the monster would hide from people. The Minotaur lived in a labyrinth, and the Athenians, as a ransom for the murdered son of Minos, had to annually send young men and women to be devoured by the monster. The Athenian hero Theseus managed to kill him.

The word Minotaur is made up of the ancient Greek name "Minos" and the noun "bull". Thus it means "bull of Minos." The Minotaur's real name was Asterius, from the ancient Greek "Asterion", meaning the bull constellation Taurus.

King Minos and the bull from the sea

King Minos was one of three sons from the union of the god Zeus and Europa. Zeus took on different forms: snake, bull, eagle, swan. When he was in the form of a bull, he seduced Europe. Asterion, the king of Crete, took Europa as his wife along with the sons of Zeus and raised the boys as his own. When Asterion died, he did not have time to bequeath which of his sons should reign on the throne: Minos, Sarpedon or Rhadamanthus. The name Minos actually means king, and he was destined to become the king of Crete. But Minos' rise to power was difficult, as he had to get ahead of his brothers' rivals. Minos claimed that he was chosen by the gods to rule and had their support. He boasted that he could prove it and prayed to the gods. One fine day, Minos prayed and promised that he would sacrifice a bull. Poseidon sent him a magnificent bull from the sea, which confirmed Minos' claim to kingship. No one dared to challenge the favor of the gods, and especially the mighty Poseidon, who rules all the seas. Minos expelled his brothers from Crete and took the throne. The three brothers united again in the afterlife, becoming judges in Hell. Their task became to judge the dead and determine their placement in hell based on their merits during life.

King Minos did not fulfill his promise to sacrifice the bull sent by Poseidon to the gods, but sacrificed an ordinary bull. He kept the majestic bull with him. For his arrogance, Poseidon punished him by instilling in the wife of King Minos Pasiphae a passion for a bull that came out of the sea. According to another version, Poseidon, outraged by the arrogance and disrespect of Minos, went to Aphrodite, and she cursed Pasiphae, rewarding her with a passion for a bull.

Pasiphae and the birth of the Minotaur

Queen Pasiphae of Crete, suffering from a passion for a bull, turned to the master Daedalus and his son Icarus for help. Daedalus built her a wooden cow, which he covered with the skin of a real cow, and attached wheels to it. Queen Pasiphae climbed inside a wooden cow and was taken to a meadow where the bull was grazing. There she united with a bull, and from this union the Minotaur, a man with the head and tail of a bull, was born. The queen named him Asterius (from the constellation of the bull Taurus). As the boy began to grow up, horns grew on his head and his face turned into a bull's muzzle. Seeing this, Minos realized that he was punished by the gods through the fate of his wife, but he left Pasiphae, and made Daedalus and Icarus slaves for their help to the queen. When Asterius grew up, Pasiphae was no longer able to feed him; he needed another source of food, since he was neither a man nor a beast. He started eating people. On the advice of the oracle, King Minos had to hide it from people. He ordered Daedalus and Icarus to build a huge labyrinth, placed his son in it and named him the Minotaur.

Death of Androgeus and tribute from the Athenians

While the labyrinth was being built, Minos learned that his and Pasiphae’s son, Androgeus, had been killed by the Athenians. Minos blamed the Athenians for the death of his only son and the destruction of his family line. He began to pursue them until they agreed to pay tribute for the death of their son. Minos demanded that the Athenians annually send seven girls and seven boys as tribute, who would be sent into the labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur. Some sources say that the most beautiful men and only virgin girls were selected. The murder of Androgeus sent a cruel plague to Athens. After consulting the Delphic Oracle, the Athenian king Aegeus learned that only by sending tribute to Minos to Crete could Athens be saved. Then the Athenians agreed.

Death of the Minotaur

The son of King Aegean, Theseus, voluntarily asked for the third batch of tribute. He assured his father and all of Athens that he would kill the Minotaur. The young man promised that on the way home he would raise white sails if he became the winner, and if the monster killed him, the crew would return under black sails. When Theseus arrived in Crete, he immediately attracted the attention of the Minotaur's half-sister Ariadne, daughter of King Minos and Phaedra. Ariadne fell in love with Theseus and rushed to Daedalus so that he could tell her how to get out of the labyrinth. Following Daedalus' instructions, she handed Theseus a ball of long thread before he entered the labyrinth. Theseus tied the end of Ariadne's thread to the front door and went into the labyrinth. He found the Minotaur in the far corner and defeated him in battle. According to some versions, he killed him with his fist, according to others, with the sword of Aegeus. Thanks to Ariadne's gift, Theseus and the other victims were able to escape from the labyrinth. Theseus simply followed Ariadne's thread until he came to the door. Fearing the wrath of Minos, Theseus, along with other Athenians, Ariadne and Phaedra, quickly sailed to Athens.

The way home

Theseus left Ariadne on the island of Naxos on his way home. The god Dionysus forced Theseus to abandon Ariadne because he liked her. As a result, Ariadne became the wife of Dionysus, and Theseus sailed home, and, saddened, forgot to change the sails to white. Theseus's father, King Aegeus, seeing the black sails from afar, killed himself out of grief by jumping from a cliff into the sea. Theseus became the new king of Athens, and named the Aegean Sea after his father.

Depictions of myth in art

The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur was widely reflected in images on ancient ceramics. Most scenes show Theseus fighting the Minotaur. The myth itself embodied the struggle between human and non-human, natural and unnatural. There are Cretan coins whose reverse side depicts the construction of a labyrinth. The myth of the labyrinth and the Minotaur testifies to the veneration of bulls in Crete and the architectural complexity of Cretan palaces.

Mythological creatures of the peoples of the world [Magical properties and possibilities of interaction] Conway Dinna J.

11. Mystical bulls and half-bulls-half-people

In ancient culture and painting one can often see images of half-humans, half-bulls. The most famous of them is the Minotaur. Some of these creatures were more human-like, others had more bull-like features. These images symbolize man's desire to control his animal emotions and instincts.

Minotaur

The Minotaur, who lived on the island of Crete, is a type of bull-man. According to legend, this creature was born as a result of the union of the Cretan queen Pasiphae and the Minoan sacred bull. The Minotaur's name comes from tauros, meaning “sacred bull,” and the name Minos, meaning “sacred to the Moon.”

In ancient times on Crete there was a tradition of sacrificing a magnificent white bull to the god of the seas, Poseidon. King Minos (the Moon King), however, wished to keep the bull for himself, and instead chose another as a sacrifice. This deception plunged Poseidon into rage, and the revenge of the god of the seas was not long in coming - he inspired the king’s wife Pasiphae with an ardent passion for the white bull. To satisfy her desire, the queen ordered the artisan Daedalus to make a cow, inside which she then hid and entered into a relationship with the animal.

When Pasiphae became pregnant, King Minos did not have the slightest suspicion, but as soon as the child with the head of a bull was born, Minos immediately realized that he had been punished by Poseidon. He did not dare kill the strange creature for fear of incurring even greater divine retribution.

The Minotaur turned out to be a cruel creature; when he grew up, he began to demand to be fed human flesh. Ultimately, Minos had to build the famous underground labyrinth in which he imprisoned the Minotaur. He instituted the famous annual bull dances, which were supposed to attract young people from all over his empire. The dancers who managed to outwit the Minotaur enjoyed the role of an acrobat, jumping on the back of a bull and performing acrobatic dances for crowds of spectators. Those who failed to deceive the Minotaur died in his arms in the labyrinth. The Minotaur was eventually killed by the Greek hero Perseus.

Minotaur

During certain holidays, the sacred Greek bull riders performed special dances and acrobatic acts with a real sacred bull in front of crowds of Cretans. Later, their desperate movements became part of the classical school of modern bullfighting. This dance with the sacred bull was dedicated to Poseidon, the Cretan king Minos and the legendary Minotaur. Bull riders sometimes wore bull masks in honor of the Minotaur, but they never wore them while performing the sacred dance.

The Minotaur represents the animal passions of people, which must be balanced with spiritual understanding, otherwise they can get out of control.

: predominance of animal aspects in people.

Magic properties: symbolizes supernatural power; protection. They protect people without revenge, with the help of spiritual power.

Other bulls with human heads

Images of people with bull heads first appeared in the third millennium BC. e. in the empires of the Middle East. Cylinder seals from this era clearly depict a man with a horned bull's head. Sometimes these bull-men were depicted in battle with heroes. Throughout the Old Babylonian and Kassite periods, these Bull-Men were depicted not only in battle, but also as servants of the sun god Shamash. During the Neo-Assyrian period, the Bull-Men were depicted holding or supporting a winged disc, the symbol of Shamash. From the Sumerian word gud-alim comes the name kusarikki, which denoted a man with a bull's head, as well as a bull with a human head.

The Indian god Yama also sometimes appeared with the head of a bull. The Lord of Death Yama was the lord of the underworld, the judge of the dead and the god of truth and virtue. His wife was his twin sister Yami. Indians claim that Yama judges the dharma (earthly duty) of people. He was also called Pithripati (father of fathers), Sraddaheva (god of funerals), Samana (leveller) and Dandadhara (beater or punisher). He was always accompanied by spotted guard dogs with four eyes. Hindus believe that Yama now lives in the capital of his kingdom, Yamapura.

Dionysus, in his early Cretan form as Zagreus, had a human body and the head of a bull. He was called the "Divine Bull" and was considered the son of Zeus. In this form, Dionysus can be considered another version of the Minotaur. According to legend, it was believed that on Earth Zagreus took the form of a man with the head of a bull, who was worshiped in the form of a sacred bull, and in the kingdom of the dead he was reborn as a snake.

In ancient Armenian myths there is a mention of the kingdom of Urartu, located around Lake Van (which is currently located in Turkey). One of the impressive legacies of this culture is a bronze alloy figurine depicting a winged bull with a human head and torso, the origin of which dates back to 750 BC. e.

Psychological characteristics: positive– understanding the underworld and the dead without immersing in fatalistic thoughts. Negative- unreasonable fear of death and the dead.

Magic properties: bulls with human heads – cm. Minotaur. The pit symbolizes truth, earthly duty, judgment, fate, death and punishment.

winged bull

Among Assyrian and Sumerian-Semitic sculptures one can still see a massive figure of a winged bull. The Assyrians called this creature shedu, or shedim. They carved his image in stone so that he would guard the gates and doors of their temples and palaces. The winged bull had a human head with a crown and a bull's body with wings.

Such a sculpture, the creation of which dates back to the 8th century BC. BC, was found in the palace of Sargon II in Khorasbad. This palace guard is depicted with five legs and a headdress with horns. Although the appearance of the shedu inspired horror, they were considered noble creatures and were usually depicted in pairs.

Shedu have enormous power. These magical creatures, like many others described in this book, had their own special language, but they are very smart and can understand the language of any people in the world. But despite this ability, shedu prefer to communicate with people through telepathy or direct mental contact. They have all supernatural powers and use them only for good. Although these creatures first appeared in the Middle East, they enjoy traveling around the world, fighting evil and helping people in dire need and magicians who ask for their support in good spells.

The Assyrian shedu, or winged bulls, with their divine wings, human heads and animal bodies, represent people. The five legs of the shedu statue symbolize the five elements - Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit.

Shedu are excellent guides in the search for ancient occult knowledge, which is usually found during astral travel. They will only help people who have high ideals and goals. Any rudeness, orders or violation of moral standards force them to immediately break off any agreements and avoid further contacts.

Psychological characteristics: A magician who has understood the importance of the five elements and learned to use them in balance. A person who has nothing to do with magic, who balances all aspects and obligations of life.

Magic properties: very powerful; helps only in good spells. Provides assistance in magic, languages, telepathy, all supernatural abilities, and the fight against evil.