From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The
aurochs (
or
; pl.
aurochs, or rarely
aurochsen,
aurochses), also known as
urus or
ure (
Bos primigenius), is an
extinct species of large wild
cattle
that inhabited Europe, Asia, and North Africa. It is the ancestor of
domestic cattle; it has also been suggested as an ancestor genetically
to the modern
European bison, which have been crossbred with
steppe bison. 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 one 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, numerous breeds share characteristics of the aurochs,
such as a dark colour in the bulls with a light eel stripe along the
back (the cows being lighter), or a typical aurochs-like horn shape.
Taxonomy
Illustration from Sigismund von Herberstein's book published in 1556 captioned : "I am 'urus', tur in Polish, aurox in German (dunces call me bison) lit. (the) ignorant (ones) had given me the name (of) Bison"; Latin original: Urus sum, polonis Tur, germanis Aurox: ignari Bisontis nomen dederant
The aurochs was variously classified as
Bos primigenius,
Bos taurus, or, in old sources,
Bos urus. However, in 2003, the
International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature
"conserved the usage of 17 specific names based on wild species, which
are predated by or contemporary with those based on domestic forms", confirming
Bos primigenius for the aurochs. Taxonomists who consider domesticated cattle a subspecies of the wild aurochs should use
B. primigenius taurus; those who consider domesticated cattle to be a separate species may use the name
B. taurus, which the Commission has kept available for that purpose.
Etymology
The words aurochs, urus, and wisent have all been used
synonymously in English. But the extinct aurochs/urus is a completely separate species from the still-extant
wisent,
also known as European bison. The two were often confused, and some
16th-century illustrations of aurochs and wisents have hybrid features.
The word
urus (
; plural
uri) is a Latin word, but was borrowed into Latin from
Germanic (cf.
Old English/
Old High German ūr,
Old Norse úr). In German,
OHG ūr was compounded with
ohso "ox", giving
ūrohso, which became early modern
Aurochs. The modern form is
Auerochse.
The word
aurochs was borrowed from early modern German, replacing archaic
urochs, also from an earlier form of German. The word is invariable in number in English, though sometimes a
back-formed singular
auroch and/or innovated plural
aurochses occur. The use in English of the plural form
aurochsen is nonstandard, but mentioned in
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. It is directly parallel to the German plural
Ochsen (singular
Ochse) and recreates by analogy the same distinction as English
ox (singular) and
oxen (plural).
Evolution
The Prejlerup-aurochs, a bull at the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen from 7400 BC
Life restoration of an aurochs bull found in Braunschweig, Germany
During the
Pliocene, the colder climate caused an extension of open grassland, which led to the evolution of large grazers, such as wild bovines.
Bos acutifrons is an
extinct species of cattle that has been suggested as an ancestor for the aurochs.
The oldest aurochs remains have been dated to about 2 million
years ago, in India. The Indian subspecies was the first to appear. During the
Pleistocene, the species migrated west into the
Middle East (western Asia), as well as to the east. They reached Europe about 270,000 years ago. The South Asian domestic cattle, or
zebu, descended from
Indian aurochs at the edge of the
Thar Desert; the zebu is resistant to
drought. Domestic
yak,
gayal, and
Bali cattle do not descend from aurochs.
The first complete mitochondrial genome (16,338
base pairs) DNA sequence analysis of
Bos primigenius from an archaeologically verified and exceptionally well preserved aurochs bone sample was published in 2010, followed by the publication in 2015 of the complete genome sequence of
Bos primigenius using DNA isolated from a 6,750-year-old British aurochs bone. Further studies using the
Bos primigenius whole genome sequence have identified candidate microRNA-regulated domestication genes.
Three wild subspecies of aurochs are recognised. Only the Eurasian subspecies survived until recent times.
- The Eurasian aurochs (B. p. primigenius) once ranged across the steppes and taigas of Europe, Siberia and Central Asia, and East Asia. It is noted as part of the Pleistocene megafauna,
and declined in numbers along with other megafauna species by the end
of Pleistocene. The Eurasian aurochs were domesticated into modern
taurine cattle breeds around the sixth millennium BC in the Middle East,
and possibly also at about the same time in the Far East. Aurochs were
still widespread in Europe during the time of the Roman Empire, when they were widely popular as a battle beast in Roman arenas.
Excessive hunting began and continued until the species was nearly
extinct. By the 13th century, aurochs existed only in small numbers in Eastern Europe,
and the hunting of aurochs became a privilege of nobles, and later
royal households. The aurochs were not saved from extinction, and the
last recorded live aurochs, a female, died in 1627 in the Jaktorów
Forest, Poland, from natural causes. Aurochs were found to have lived on
the island of Sicily, having migrated via a land bridge
from Italy. After the disappearance of the land bridge, Sicilian
aurochs evolved to be 20% smaller than their mainland relatives due to insular dwarfism. Fossilized specimens were found in Japan, possibly herded with steppe bison.
- The Indian aurochs (B. p. namadicus) once inhabited India.
It was the first subspecies of the aurochs to appear, at 2 million
years ago, and from about 9000 years ago, it was domesticated as the
zebu. Fossil remains indicate wild Indian aurochs besides domesticated zebu cattle were in Gujarat and the Ganges area until about 4–5000 years ago. Remains from wild aurochs 4400 years old are clearly identified from Karnataka in South India.
- The North African aurochs (B. p. africanus) once lived in the woodland and shrubland of North Africa. It descended from aurochs populations migrating from the Middle East. The North African aurochs was morphologically very similar to the Eurasian subspecies, so this taxon may exist only in a biogeographic sense. However, evidence indicates it was genetically distinct from the Eurasian subspecies. Depictions show that North African aurochs may have had a light saddle marking on its back. This subspecies may have been extinct before the Middle Ages.
Description
The appearance of the aurochs has been reconstructed from skeletal
material, historical descriptions, and contemporaneous depictions, such
as
cave paintings, engravings, or
Sigismund von Herberstein’s illustration. The work by
Charles Hamilton Smith is a copy of a painting owned by a merchant in
Augsburg,
which may date to the 16th century. Scholars have proposed that Smith's
illustration was based on a cattle/aurochs hybrid, or an aurochs-like
breed. The aurochs was depicted in prehistoric cave paintings and described in
Julius Caesar's
The Gallic War, Book 6, Ch. 28.
Size
Holocene aurochs bull skull in Berlin
The aurochs were one of the largest
herbivores
in postglacial Europe, comparable to the wisent (European bison). The
size of an aurochs appears to have varied by region; in Europe, northern
populations were bigger on average than those from the south. For
example, during the
Holocene,
aurochs from Denmark and Germany had an average height at the shoulders
of 155–180 cm (61–71 in) in bulls and 135–155 cm (53–61 in) in cows,
while aurochs populations in Hungary had bulls reaching 155–160 cm
(61–63 in).
The body mass of aurochs appears to have shown some variability. Some
individuals were comparable in weight to the wisent and the banteng,
reaching around 700 kg (1,540 lb), whereas those from the late-middle
Pleistocene are estimated to have weighed up to 1,500 kg (3,310 lb), as
much as the largest
gaur (the largest extant bovid). The
sexual dimorphism between bulls and cows was strongly expressed, with the cows being significantly shorter than bulls on average.
Restoration
of the aurochs based on a bull skeleton from Lund and a cow skeleton
from Cambridge, with chart of characteristic external features of the
aurochs
Horns
Because of the massive horns, the
frontal bones
of aurochs were elongated and broad. The horns of the aurochs were
characteristic in size, curvature, and orientation. They were curved in
three directions: upwards and outwards at the base, then swinging
forwards and inwards, then inwards and upwards. Aurochs horns could
reach 80 cm (31 in) in length and between 10 and 20 cm (3.9 and 7.9 in)
in diameter.
The horns of bulls were larger, with the curvature more strongly
expressed than in cows. The horns grew from the skull at a 60° angle to
the muzzle, facing forwards.
Body shape
The proportions and body shape of the aurochs were strikingly different from many modern cattle breeds.
For example, the legs were considerably longer and more slender,
resulting in a shoulder height that nearly equalled the trunk length.
The skull, carrying the large horns, was substantially larger and more
elongated than in most cattle breeds. As in other wild bovines, the body
shape of the aurochs was athletic, and especially in bulls, showed a
strongly expressed neck and shoulder musculature. Therefore, the fore
hand was larger than the rear, similar to the wisent, but unlike many
domesticated cattle.
Even in carrying cows, the udder was small and hardly visible from the
side; this feature is equal to that of other wild bovines.
Coat colour
The coat colour of the aurochs can be reconstructed by using historical and contemporary depictions. In his letter to
Conrad Gesner (1602),
Anton Schneeberger describes the aurochs, a description that agrees with cave paintings in
Lascaux and
Chauvet.
Calves were born a chestnut colour. Young bulls changed their coat
colour at a few months old to a very deep brown or black, with a white
eel stripe running down the spine. Cows retained the reddish-brown colour. Both sexes had a light-coloured muzzle. Some North African engravings show aurochs with a light-coloured "saddle" on the back,
but otherwise no evidence of variation in coat colour is seen
throughout its range. A passage from Mucante (1596), describing the
“wild ox” as gray, but is ambiguous and may refer to the wisent.
Egyptian grave paintings show cattle with a reddish-brown coat colour in
both sexes, with a light saddle, but the horn shape of these suggest
that they may depict domesticated cattle. Remains of aurochs hair were not known until the early 1980s.
Colour of forelocks
Some primitive cattle breeds display similar coat colours to the
aurochs, including the black colour in bulls with a light eel stripe, a
pale mouth, and similar sexual dimorphism in colour. A feature often
attributed to the aurochs is blond forehead hairs. Historical
descriptions tell that the aurochs had long and curly forehead hair, but
none mentions a certain colour for it. Cis van Vuure (2005) says that,
although the colour is present in a variety of primitive cattle breeds,
it is probably a discolouration that appeared after domestication. The
gene responsible for this feature has not yet been identified.
Zebu breeds show lightly coloured inner sides of the legs and belly,
caused by the so-called zebu-tipping gene. It has not been tested if
this gene is present in remains of the wild form of the zebu, the Indian
aurochs.
Behaviour and ecology
Like many bovids, aurochs formed herds for at least a part of the
year. These probably did not number much more than 30. If aurochs had
social behaviour similar to their descendants, social status was gained
through displays and fights, in which cows engaged as well as bulls. Indeed, aurochs bulls were reported to often have had severe fights. As in other wild cattle,
ungulates that form unisexual herds, considerable
sexual dimorphism was expressed. Ungulates that form herds containing animals of both sexes, such as
horses, have more weakly developed sexual dimorphism.
During the mating season, which probably took place during the late summer or early autumn,
the bulls had severe fights, and evidence from the forest of Jaktorów
shows these could lead to death. In autumn, aurochs fed up for the
winter and got fatter and shinier than during the rest of the year,
according to Schneeberger.
Calves were born in spring. According to Schneeberger, the calf stayed
at the cow's side until it was strong enough to join and keep up with
the herd on the feeding grounds.
Calves were vulnerable to
wolves and, to an extent,
bears, while healthy adult aurochs probably did not have to fear these predators. In prehistoric Europe, North Africa, and Asia,
big cats, such as lions and tigers, and hyenas were additional predators that probably preyed on aurochs.
Historical descriptions, like Caesar's
Commentarii de Bello Gallico
or Schneeberger, tell that aurochs were swift and fast, and could be
very aggressive. According to Schneeberger, aurochs were not concerned
when a man approached, but when teased or hunted, an aurochs could get
very aggressive and dangerous, and throw the teasing person into the
air, as he described in a 1602 letter to Gesner.
Habitat and distribution
Floodplain forests like this one in Germany were the aurochs' last refuge during its final centuries of existence.
No consensus exists concerning the habitat of the aurochs. While some
authors think that the habitat selection of the aurochs was comparable
to the
African forest buffalo,
others describe the species as inhabiting open grassland and helping
maintain open areas by grazing, together with other large herbivores. With its
hypsodont jaw, the aurochs was probably a grazer and had a food selection very similar to domesticated cattle. It was not a browser like many
deer species, nor a semi-intermediary feeder like the wisent.
Comparisons of the isotope levels of Mesolithic aurochs and domestic
cattle bones showed that aurochs probably inhabited wetter areas than
domestic cattle. Schneeberger describes that during winter, the aurochs ate twigs and acorns in addition to grasses.
After the beginning of the Common Era, the habitat of aurochs
became more fragmented because of the steadily growing human population.
During the last centuries of its existence, the aurochs was limited to
remote regions, such as floodplain forests or marshes, with no competing
domestic herbivores and less hunting pressure.
Relationship with humans
Domestication
The
Vig-aurochs, one of two very well-preserved aurochs skeletons found in
Denmark. The circles indicate where the animal was wounded by arrows.
Genetic analyses show that the Texas Longhorn breed of cattle originated from an Iberian hybrid of domesticated wild aurochs from the Middle East and domesticated Indian aurochs.
The aurochs, which ranged throughout much of
Eurasia and
Northern Africa during the
late Pleistocene and early
Holocene, is the wild ancestor of modern cattle. Archaeological evidence shows that domestication occurred independently in the
Near East and the
Indian subcontinent between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago, giving rise to the two major domestic taxa observed today: humpless
Bos taurus (taurine) and humped
Bos indicus (zebu), respectively. This is confirmed by genetic analyses of matrilineal
mitochondrial DNA sequences, which reveal a marked differentiation between modern
B. taurus and
B. indicus haplotypes, demonstrating their derivation from two geographically and genetically divergent wild populations. A third domestication event possibly occurred from another form of the aurochs in Africa. The
sanga cattle,
a zebu-like cattle breed with no back hump, is commonly believed to
originate from crosses between humped zebus with taurine cattle breeds.
However, some archaeological evidence indicates these cattle were
domesticated independently in Africa and that bloodlines of taurine and
zebu cattle were introduced only within the last few hundreds years.
Domestication of the aurochs began in the southern
Caucasus and northern
Mesopotamia
from about the sixth millennium BC. Genetic evidence suggests that
aurochs were independently domesticated in India and possibly also in
northern Africa.
Domesticated cattle and aurochs are so different in size that they have
been regarded as separate species; however, large ancient cattle and
aurochs have more similar morphological characteristics, with
significant differences only in the horns and some parts of the cranium.
A
mitochondrial DNA study suggests that all domesticated taurine cattle originated from about 80 wild female aurochs in the Near East.
Charles Hamilton Smith's copy of a painting possibly dating to the 16th century
Comparison
of aurochs bones with those of modern cattle has provided many insights
about the aurochs. Remains of the beast, from specimens believed to
have weighed more than a ton, have been found in
Mesolithic sites around
Goldcliff, Wales.
Though aurochs became extinct in Britain during the
Bronze Age,
analysis of bones from aurochs that lived about the same time as
domesticated cattle traditionally suggested no genetic contribution to
modern breeds. More recent work has pointed to substantial aurochs
contributions to indigenous British cattle breeds, with the most
material found in
Kerry cattle.
Indian zebu, although domesticated eight to ten thousand years
ago, are related to aurochs that diverged from the Near Eastern ones
some 200,000 years ago. African cattle are thought to have descended
from aurochs more closely related to the Near Eastern ones. The Near
East and African aurochs groups are thought to have split some 25,000
years ago, probably 15,000 years before domestication. The "
Turano-Mongolian"
type of cattle now found in northern China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan
may represent a fourth domestication event (and a third event among
B. taurus–type
aurochs). This group may have diverged from the Near East group some
35,000 years ago. Whether these separate genetic populations would have
equated to separate subspecies is unclear.
The maximum range of the aurochs was from Europe (excluding Ireland and northern
Scandinavia), to northern Africa, the Middle East, India, and Central Asia. Until at least 3,000 years ago, the aurochs was also found in
eastern China, where it is recorded at the
Dingjiabao Reservoir in
Yangyuan County.
Most remains in China are known from the area east of 105°E, but the
species has also been reported from the eastern margin of the Tibetan
plateau, close to the
Heihe River.
[39] In Japan, excavations in various locations, such as in
Iwate and
Tochigi prefectures, have found aurochs which may have herded with steppe bison.
Extinction
The
inscription reads: "The Aurochs – Bos primigenius bojanus, the ancestor
of domestic cattle, lived in this forest Jaktorów until the year 1627."
By the time of
Herodotus (fifth century BC), aurochs had disappeared from southern
Greece, but remained common in the area north and east of the Echedorus River close to modern
Thessaloniki. The last reports of the species in the southern tip of the
Balkans date to the first century BC, when
Varro reported that fierce wild oxen lived in Dardania (southern
Serbia) and
Thrace. By the 13th century AD, the aurochs' range was restricted to Poland,
Lithuania,
Moldavia,
Transylvania, and
East Prussia. The right to hunt large animals on any land was restricted first to nobles, and then gradually, to only the royal households.
As the population of aurochs declined, hunting ceased, and the royal
court used gamekeepers to provide open fields for grazing for the
aurochs. The gamekeepers were exempted from local taxes in exchange for
their service.
Poaching aurochs was punishable by death.
According to a Polish royal survey in 1564, the gamekeepers knew
of 38 animals. The last recorded live aurochs, a female, died in 1627 in
the Jaktorów Forest, Poland, from natural causes. The causes of
extinction were unrestricted hunting, a narrowing of habitat due to the
development of farming, and diseases transmitted by domesticated cattle.
Breeding of aurochs-like cattle
While all the wild subspecies are extinct, B. primigenius
lives on in domesticated cattle, and attempts are being made to breed
similar types suitable for filling the extinct subspecies' role in the
wild.
The idea of breeding back the aurochs was first proposed in the 19th century by
Feliks Paweł Jarocki.
In the 1920s, a first attempt was undertaken by the Heck brothers in
Germany with the aim of breeding an effigy (a look-alike) of the
aurochs. Starting in the 1990s,
grazing and
rewilding projects
brought new impetus to the idea and new breeding-back efforts came
underway, this time with the aim of recreating an animal not only with
the looks, but also with the behaviour and the ecological impact of the
aurochs, to be able to fill the ecological role of the aurochs.
Heck cattle: the first attempt to breed a look-alike from modern cattle from the 1920s
Heck cattle
In the early 1920s, two German zoo directors (in
Berlin and
Munich), the brothers
Heinz and
Lutz Heck, began a
selective breeding program to
breed back
the aurochs into existence from the descendant domesticated cattle.
Their plan was based on the concept that a species is not extinct as
long as all its genes are still present in a living population. The result is the breed called
Heck cattle. It resembles what is known about the appearance of the aurochs in colour, and in some cases, also horn shape.
Taurus Project
The
Arbeitsgemeinschaft Biologischer Umweltschutz, a
conservation group in Germany, started to crossbreed Heck cattle with
southern-European primitive breeds in 1996, with the goal of increasing
the aurochs-likeness of certain Heck cattle herds. These crossbreeds are
called Taurus cattle. It is intended to bring in aurochs-like features
that are supposedly missing in Heck cattle using
Sayaguesa Cattle and
Chianina, and to a lesser extent
Spanish Fighting Cattle (Lidia). The same breeding program is being carried out in Latvia, in
Lille Vildmose National Park in Denmark, and in the Hungarian
Hortobágy National Park. The program in
Hungary also includes
Hungarian Grey cattle and
Watusi.
Tauros Programme
The Dutch-based Tauros Programme,
(initially TaurOs Project) is trying to DNA-sequence breeds of
primitive cattle to find gene sequences that match those found in
"ancient DNA" from aurochs samples. The modern cattle would be
selectively bred to try to produce the aurochs-type genes in a single
animal. Starting around 2007, Tauros Programme selected a number of primitive breeds mainly from Iberia and Italy, such as
Sayaguesa cattle,
Maremmana primitivo,
Pajuna cattle,
Limia cattle,
Maronesa cattle,
Tudanca cattle,
and others, which already bear considerable resemblance to the aurochs
in certain features. Tauros Programme started collaborations with
Rewilding Europe and
European Wildlife,
two European organizations for ecological restoration and rewilding,
and now has breeding herds not only in the Netherlands but also in
Portugal, Croatia, Romania, and the Czech Republic. Numerous crossbred
calves of the first, second, and third offspring generations have
already been born.
An ecologist working on the Tauros programme has estimated it will take
7 generations for the project to achieve its aims, possibly by 2025.
Uruz Project
A further back-breeding effort, the Uruz project, was started in 2013
by the True Nature Foundation, an organization for ecological
restoration and rewilding. It differs from the other projects in that it is planning to make use of genome editing. Its preliminary plans called for the use of Sayaguesa, Maremmana primitive, or Hungarian Grey (Steppe) cattle, and
Texas Longhorn with wildtype colour or
Barrosã cattle.
The finalised plans now call for setting up two breeding lines,
Sayaguesa × Maremmana primitiva/Hungarian Steppe cattle and Watusi ×
Chianina, and later crossing these lines. Two Watusi × Chianina breeding herds have been set up in Boxmeer and Breda in the Netherlands, another herd using Barrosã is being set up in northern Portugal.
Auerrind Project
The newest of the back-breeding efforts, the
Auerrindprojekt, was started in 2015 as a conjoint effort of the Experimentalarchäologisches Freilichtlabor Lauresham (Lauresham Experimental-Archaeological Open-air Laboratory, run by
Lorsch Abbey), the Förderkreis Große Pflanzenfresser im Kreis Bergstraße e.V. (Promoting Association Megaherbivores in Bergstraße District) and the Landschaftspflegebetrieb Hohmeyer (Landscape Preservation Company Hohmeyer). In accordance with the breeding aims, the Auerrindprojekt has already set up two breeding herds of Watusi × Chianina and one breeding herd of Sayaguesa x
Podolian cattle; a second breeding herd of Sayaguesa × Podolian cattle will be started in 2017.
Other projects
Scientists of the Polish Foundation for Recreating the Aurochs (PFOT)
in Poland hope to use DNA from bones in museums to recreate the
aurochs. They plan to return this animal to the forests of Poland. The
project has gained the support of the
Polish Ministry of the Environment. They plan research on ancient preserved DNA. Other research projects have extracted "ancient" DNA over the past 20 years and their results have been published in such periodicals as
Nature and
PNAS. Polish scientists
Ryszard Słomski
and Jacek A. Modliński believe that modern genetics and biotechnology
make it possible to recreate an animal almost identical to the aurochs.
They say this research will lead to examining the causes of the
extinction of the aurochs, and help prevent a similar occurrence with
domesticated cattle.
Breeding back the aurochs
Approaches that aim to breed an aurochs-like
phenotype do not equate to an aurochs-like
genotype.
In 2015, researchers mapped the draft genome of a British aurochs dated
to 6,750 years before present. Researchers compared the genome to the
genomes of 73 modern cattle populations and found that traditional or
landrace
cattle breeds of Scottish, Irish, Welsh, and English origin – such as
Highland, Dexter, Kerry, Welsh Black, and White Park – carry the
ancestry of the sequenced aurochs, but the other populations did not. Another study concluded that because of this genomic
introgression
of the aurochs into these breeds, if this reflects "the bigger picture
across the aurochs/cattle range, perhaps several subpopulations of
aurochs are not extinct at all." The study proposed that it will be
possible to consider breeding back cattle "that are genetically akin to
specific original aurochs populations, through selective cross-breeding
of local cattle breeds bearing local aurochs-genome ancestry."
Cultural significance
Cro-Magnon graffito of Bos primigenius in Grotta del Romito, Papasidero, Italy
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. Aurochs existed into the
Iron Age in
Anatolia and the Near East, where it was worshiped as a sacred animal, the
Lunar Bull, associated with the
Great Goddess and later with
Mithras. In 2012, an archaeological mission of the
British Museum, led by
Lebanese archaeologist Claude Doumet Serhal, discovered at the site of the old American school in
Sidon,
Lebanon, the remains of wild animal bones, including those of an
aurochs, dating from the late-fourth to early-third millennium. 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.
The violent cup of Vaphio showing aurochs hunting, Greece, (15th century BC)
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 BC 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,
as mentioned by Samus, Philippus of Thessalonica and
Antipater when
Philip V of Macedon killed an aurochs on the foothills of mountain
Orvilos, he offered the horns which were 105 cm long and the skin to a temple of
Hercules. Aurochs horns were often used by Romans as hunting horns. Aurochs were among those wild animals caught for fights (
venationes) in
arenas.
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.
They survived in the wild in Europe till late in the
Roman Empire and were occasionally captured and exhibited live in shows in the
colosseum.
The
Hebrew Bible contains numerous references to the untameable strength of
re'em, translated as "bullock" or "wild-ox" in Jewish translations and translated rather poorly in the
King James Version as "
unicorn", but recognised 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: "
Darnach schlug er schiere einen Wisent und einen Elch, starker Ure viere und einen grimmen Schelch",
meaning "After that, he defeated one wisent and one elk, four aurochs,
and one Schelch" - the background of the "Schelch" is dubious. 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 on its foundation in 1352, probably by the
college's founders, the Guilds of Corpus Christi and the Blessed Virgin
Mary, is thought to come from an aurochs. A painting by
Willem Kalf
depicts an aurochs horn. The horns of the last aurochs bulls, which
died in 1620, were ornamented with gold and are located at the
Livrustkammaren in Stockholm today.
Schneeberger writes that aurochs were hunted with arrows, nets,
and hunting dogs. With immobilised aurochs, a ritual was practised that
might be regarded as cruel nowadays: the curly hair on the forehead was
cut from the skull of the living animal. Belts were made out of this
hair and were believed to increase the fertility of women. When the
aurochs was slaughtered, a cross-like bone (os cardis) was
extracted from the heart. This bone, which is also present in
domesticated cattle, contributed to the mystique of the animal and
magical powers have been attributed to it.
A 16th-century illustration by Teodoro Ghisi, believed to show an aurochs, although the horns and muzzle differ from those of an aurochs.
In eastern Europe, where it survived until nearly 400 years ago, the aurochs has left traces in fixed expressions. In
Russia,
a drunken person behaving badly was described as "behaving like an
aurochs", whereas in Poland, big, strong people were characterized as
being "a bloke like an aurochs".
In Central Europe, the aurochs features in toponyms and heraldic coats of arms. For example, the names
Ursenbach and
Aurach am Hongar are derived from the aurochs. An aurochs head, the traditional arms of the German region
Mecklenburg, figures in the
coat of arms of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. The aurochs (
Romanian bour, from Latin
būbalus) was also the symbol of
Moldavia; nowadays, they can be found in the coat of arms of both
Romania and
Moldova. An aurochs head is featured on an 1858 series of Moldavian stamps, the so-called
Bull's Heads (
cap de bour in Romanian), renowned for their rarity and price among collectors. In Romania there are still villages named
Boureni, after the Romanian word for the auroch. The horn of the aurochs is a
charge of the coat of arms of
Tauragė, Lithuania, (the name of Tauragė is a compound of
taũras "auroch" and
ragas "horn"). It is also present in the emblem of
Kaunas, Lithuania, and was part of the emblem of
Bukovina during its time as an
Austro-Hungarian Kronland. The Swiss
Canton of Uri is named after the aurochs; its yellow flag shows a black aurochs head. East Slavic surnames Turenin, Turishchev, Turov, and
Turovsky originate from the Slavic name of the species
tur. In
Slovakia, toponyms such as
Turany, Turíčky,
Turie, Turie Pole,
Turík,
Turová (villages),
Turiec (river and region), Turská dolina (valley) and others are used.
Turopolje, a large lowland floodplain south of the
Sava River in
Croatia, got its name from the once-abundant aurochs (Croatian:
tur). The ancient name of the
Estonian town of
Rakvere,
Tarwanpe or
Tarvanpea, probably derives from "Aurochs head" (
Tarvan pea) in ancient
Estonian.
In 2002, a 3.5-m-high and 7.1-m-long statue of an aurochs was
erected in Rakvere, Estonia, for the town's 700th birthday. The
sculpture, by artist
Tauno Kangro, has become a symbol of the town.
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