OXEN! The Minoans were OX LEAPING!
Sacred Precincts:The moat, which is over 15 feet deep in places, was dug out of bedrock. We have found a great deal of local pottery in the moat. Surprisingly, we have also found skeletons of what at first appeared to be horses or donkeys. Later analysis showed that these were the bones of a now-extinct equid not known anywhere else in the world -- one smaller than a horse but taller than a donkey or a pony. Study of the bones revealed that the animals had not been used for hard labor or transportation. Stranger still, they were all beheaded and buried in the western moat -- the bones of their bodies at one end of the moat and their skulls at the other. We have found nearly 30 of these creatures. Were they sacred animals? Did worshipers mount them for ritual processions? Did they have some other cultic function? We are open to suggestions, and we hope that further excavations will help solve this mystery.
A Tartessian Sanctuary in Ancient Spain
by Sebastian Celestino
and Carolina Lopez-Ruiz