Bulls of Guisando
Encyclopedia
Celtiberians
The Celtiberians were Celtic-speaking people of the Iberian Peninsula in the final centuries BC. The group used the Celtic Celtiberian language.Archaeologically, the Celtiberians participated in the Hallstatt culture in what is now north-central Spain...
sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
s located on the hill of Guisando in the municipality of El Tiemblo
El Tiemblo
El Tiemblo is a municipality located in the province of Ávila, Castile and León, Spain. According to the 2006 census , the municipality has a population of 4,071 inhabitants.]...
, Ávila
Ávila (province)
Ávila is a province of central-western Spain, in the southern part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is bordered on the south by the provinces of Toledo and Cáceres, on the west by Salamanca, on the north by Valladolid, and on the east by Segovia and Madrid. Ávila has a...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. The sculptures, made of granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
, represent quadruped
Quadruped
Quadrupedalism is a form of land animal locomotion using four limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a quadrupedal manner is known as a quadruped, meaning "four feet"...
s identified as bull
Bull (mythology)
The worship of the Sacred Bull throughout the ancient world is most familiar to the Western world in the biblical episode of the idol of the Golden Calf. The Golden Calf after being made by the Hebrew people in the wilderness of Sinai, were rejected and destroyed by Moses and his tribe after his...
s or pig
Domestic pig
The domestic pig is a domesticated animal that traces its ancestry to the wild boar, and is considered a subspecies of the wild boar or a distinct species in its own right. It is likely the wild boar was domesticated as early as 13,000 BC in the Tigris River basin...
s. The balance of opinion favours bulls: there are holes which have been interpreted as sockets for horns.
The Bulls of Guisando are examples of a type of ancient sculpture called verraco
Verraco
The verracos are granite megalithic monuments, sculptures of animals that are to be found in the west of the Iberian meseta - the high central plain of the Iberian peninsula - in the Spanish provinces of Ávila, Salamanca, Zamora, and Cáceres, but also in the north of Portugal and Galicia...
s of which hundreds are known. They are associated with the territory of a celtiberian tribe called the Vettones
Vettones
The Vettones were one of the pre-Roman Celtic peoples of the Iberian Peninsula .- Origins :...
. The Bulls may have been made during the 2nd century BC. Whether they are in their original position is debatable. There are some Latin graffiti on them which may mean they were repositioned in Roman times.
The field around the Bulls was the place where the Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando
Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando
The Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando is the name of a treaty agreed on top of the hill of Guisando near the Bulls of Guisando on September 18, 1468, between Henry IV of Castile and his half-sister Isabella of Castile...
was signed between Henry IV of Castile
Henry IV of Castile
Henry IV , King of the Crown of Castile, nicknamed the Impotent , was the last of the weak late medieval kings of Castile...
and his half-sister Isabella of Castille on September 18, 1468, which granted her the title of Princess of Asturias
Princess of Asturias
This is a list of women who held the title Princess of Asturias by marriage.The title was created in 1388 for the future Henry III of Castile and Catherine of Lancaster. A part of the pact was to gran the young couple the title of Prince and Princess of Asturias, which was modelled after that of...
thus ending a civil war in Castile
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
.
The Bulls are also a recurrent feature in Spanish literature
Spanish literature
Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...
. For instance, Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
references them several times throughout his novel Don Quixote. Federico García Lorca
Federico García Lorca
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
uses their symbolic value in his Llanto por la muerte de Ignacio Sánchez Mejías:
- ...y los toros de Guisando,
- casi muerte y casi piedra,
- mugieron como dos siglos
- hartos de pisar la tierra
- ...and the bulls of Guisando
- partly death and partly stone
- bellowed like two centuries
- tired of treading the earth
The bulls are protected in Spain's heritage listings as a Bien de Interés Cultural
Bien de Interés Cultural
A Bien de Interés Cultural is a category of the Spanish heritage register. This category dates from 1985 when it replaced the former heritage category of Monumento nacional in order to extend protection to a wider range of cultural property...
(Property of Cultural Interest), being classified as a Sitio histórico or historic site.