The gate of the year

Tetradrachm (coin equivalent to four drachmae), coined in Gela, Sicily, in 460 B.C. and now in the Staatliche Münzsammlung, Munich, Germany. The image of the bull with a human head represents the river god Gela, from whom the Sicilian city took its name. In ancient Greece the river deities were regarded as fearful and dangerous beings, which should be propitiated with sacrifices and were frequently depicted as therianthropic beings. The main river in Greece was the Achelous, son of Oceanus and Tethys, who was generally represented as a bull with a human face. In the Iliad, the Scamander river is described as a being “with a human face”, against which the valiant warrior Achilles fought. To this river the Trojans sacrificed living bulls and horses, which were thrown into its whirlpools (Iliad, XXI, 131-132).

[Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gela,_tetradracma,_460_ac._ca.JPG]




Human-Animal Transformation

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Tetradrachm (coin equivalent to four drachmae), coined in Gela, Sicily, in 460 B.C. and now in the Staatliche Münzsammlung, Munich, Germany. The image of the bull with a human head represents the river god Gela, from whom the Sicilian city took its name. In ancient Greece the river deities were regarded as fearful and dangerous beings, which should be propitiated with sacrifices and were frequently depicted as therianthropic beings. The main river in Greece was the Achelous, son of Oceanus and Tethys, who was generally represented as a bull with a human face. In the Iliad, the Scamander river is described as a being “with a human face”, against which the valiant warrior Achilles fought. To this river the Trojans sacrificed living bulls and horses, which were thrown into its whirlpools (Iliad, XXI, 131-132). [Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gela,_tetradracma,_460_ac._ca.JPG]