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My mom gave this to me when I was a teenager. She got it from my grandmother at about the same age. This must have been in Izmir, Turkey --sometime in the early Sixties. It has been in our family for generations. When I hold it in my hands, something I probably shouldn't do, I marvel at its resilence and luck, how much longer it lasted than the civilization which created it. It also makes me think of how long ago food production developed where I was born: Istanbul. Will anything I make today last as long as this little bronze bull? Someday I should like to authenticate it, or maybe not. Who knows? It could be a more contemporary replica, knowing for sure would spoil the delight I experience being able to pick it up. Something I very much wanted to do as a child to the objects behind the glass at the museum. Of course I never could. Holding this little bronze bull, how heavy it feels, heavier than such a tiny thing should. I like to imagine it's the extra weight of the centuries pressing down on my palm through its little bronze feet. I hope to pass it on as well someday. Both the bull and the sense of wonder it inspires. It's a daily reminder that "today" was once 4000 years ago.