Original scientific paper

The Bull Protome Consoles from Pula

Alka Starac orcid.org/0000-0002-8254-0849 ; Archaeological Museum od Istria, Pula, Croatia

Abstract

This paper discusses two limestone consoles with bull’s head
decoration from Pula of unknown find circumstances. It
presents a brief overview of buildings in the eastern and western
Mediterranean with bull protome decorative features on their
friezes, architraves, consoles, keystones or capitals. The overview
covers the early use of bull protomes in Hellenistic and Roman
architecture, their symbolic role, where they spread, and the types
of buildings on which they were present. Parallel with the rise
of Augustan rule was the beginning of a period in which bull
protomes saw the peak of their popularity on prominent parts of
monumental public buildings. The symbolic significance of the
bull is associated with the official imperial iconography. Both
realistic and schematised depictions of the forepart of a kneeling
bull and the depiction of a bull’s head were parallel features of
load-bearing architectural elements throughout the whole of the
Roman imperial period. Bull protomes were usually found at
major entrances to a city or to an urban architectural complex
within a city. The paper further considers the question of which
of Pula’s edifices the bull’s head consoles might have been from.
The current degree of archaeological insight precludes a definitive
answer to this question—the only confident assertion that can
be made is that the structure in question was a part of the
monumental architecture of an entrance or passage.

Keywords

architectural decoration; Augustus; bull; forum; city gate; console; Pula

Hrčak ID:

291745

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/291745

Publication date:

14.12.2022.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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