Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

Bicha de Balazote

English translation:

the Beast of Balazote / the Biche of Balazote

Added to glossary by Charles Davis
May 9, 2013 22:53
11 yrs ago
Spanish term

Bicha de Balazote

Spanish to English Art/Literary Archaeology
What does "Bicha" mean in "Bicha de Balazote"? That is a 6h century BC rock sculpture. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biche_of_Balazote. The Wikipedia article defines "Bicha" in Spanish as "snake" or "bug." This seems wrong. Cassells gives, inter alia, "fantastic caryatid," which seems closer, but not quite right either.
Change log

May 16, 2013 14:43: Charles Davis Created KOG entry

Discussion

Yelraf (asker) May 16, 2013:
"bicha" meaning "zoomorph" or hybrid Turns out that the use of "bicha" as a hybrid long predates the discovery of this artifact. See BICHO OR BICHA. “a sort of figures half men or women, and half fish, or any other beast” Diccionario Espanol E Ingles; A Dictionary, English and Spanish, Vol. 1, p. 105 (London: Piestre 1786) books.google.com/books?id=b_5SAAAAcAAJ
Christine Walsh May 9, 2013:
Is it part of a text, or were you just looking for the meaning?
Christine Walsh May 9, 2013:
Have a look at this: Diccionario Espasa concise inglés-español © 2000 Espasa Calpe:
bicha sustantivo femenino
1 familiar snake
2 Arte fantastic zoomorphic being, sometimes hybrid half human half animal

Definition 2 seems to fit the bill

Proposed translations

+3
2 hrs
Selected

the Beast of Balazote / the Biche of Balazote

As for what to call this piece in English, I don't think there is really an established name sanctioned by academic opinion. One option is certainly to stick with the name used in Wikipedia, "Biche of Balazote", which occurs in a number of places, some of which Taña has cited (and many or most of which could well be derived from the Wikipedia page).

As an alternative, I am quite attracted to "Beast of Balazote", which is what Carlos Fuentes calls it in The Buried Mirror: Reflections on Spain and the New World (p. 19), based on his BBC TV series (the phrase may have been coined by a translator):
http://books.google.es/books?id=Yyj5PK-15UwC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA1...

The figure is in fact a bull with the head of a man. In an unsigned article "Pre-Roman Antiquities of Spain", published in 1907 in the American Journal of Archaeology, 11: 182-93, it is illustrated with the caption "Bull with Human Head from Balazote" (p. 187).
http://www.jstor.org/stable/496934?seq=6

So perhaps you could call it the "Bull of Balazote", though I don't know whether anyone has. Or possibly "Bull-Man of Balazote"; the bull-man often has a bull's head on a man's body, like the minotaur, but here's an Old Babylonian bull-man in the British Museum with a human head (albeit apparently with horns originally).
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/highlight_ob...

Anyway, there are several possibilities. One reason for leaving it as Biche or indeed Bicha is familiarity.

But as for what "bicha" means here, the dictionary definitions are quite irrelevant. "Bicha" has none of its normal meanings: the devil, a snake, or a decorative figure of a woman with the lower body of a fish (see DRAE). In this case, as the Wikipedia page explains, is simply a calque of the French word "biche", meaning doe (female deer), because the French archaeologists who first worked on it thought the body was that of a doe (which seems odd, but there we are) and named it "La Biche de Balazote". It's certainly not a caryatid.

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Note added at 2 hrs (2013-05-10 00:56:51 GMT)
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Personally I think it's more suitable to call it "the Beast/Biche of Balazote" rather than "the Balazote Beast/Biche", just as, for example, we call the Dama de Elche "the Lady of Elche", not "the Elche Lady".

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Note added at 2 hrs (2013-05-10 01:03:09 GMT)
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I am very sceptical about the definition in El País of "Figura ornamental característica del arte ibérico, en forma de animal o mixta, con una parte humana y otra animal". It seems to me that this is quite probably derived from the name of this piece, which is only called "bicha" because of a mistake. I don't this "bicha" means that in a general sense.

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Note added at 2 hrs (2013-05-10 01:39:20 GMT)
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In other words, if you wanted a literal translation of the actual meaning of "bicha" here, it would be "The Doe of Balazote". But it would be absurd to call it that, since it is not in fact a doe at all.

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Note added at 6 days (2013-05-16 15:05:13 GMT) Post-grading
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I didn't have time to answer your note earlier, and I see from your discussion commenta that you have found an eighteenth-century reference showing that bicha did once mean a hybrid.

This turns out to be very interesting. First of all, let's be clear that, as you say, the correct word for a creature like this is a hybrid, not zoomorph. A zoomorph is a representation of a human being or a god in the form of an animal. A hybrid is a combination of different species (either human-animal or animal-animal).

Well now, it turns out that the English definition you found from 1786 reflects the main definition of "bicho, o bicha" in the first RAE dictionary (known as the Diccionario de autoridades, this volume of which appeared in 1726:

"Ciertas figúras de hombres, ù de béstias, que se remátan de medio cuerpo abaxo, quando se fingen entéras en otra forma de la que tuvieron al principio: como en follages, peces, ò algun otro animál, segun la idéa que mejor, ò mas proporcionada paréce al Pintór, ò Escultór, para mayor adorno de los lugáres en que los empléa [...]"

This is a particular kind of hybrid: top half human, bottom half foliage, fish "or another animal", and for particular decorative purposes.

Anyway, by the time the RAE published its next dictionary in 1770, this definition had disappeared. "Bicho, o bicha" simply meant "Qualquiera sabandija como lagartija, alacran, &c. Hoy solo se dice bicho".

And so things remained in subsequent editions up to 1884 inclusive. But in 1899 the RAE reintroduced a definition rather similar, though narrower, than that of 1726, and as an architectural term:

"Arq. Figura de animal fantástico, que entre frutas y follajes se emplea como objeto de ornamentación, principalmente en la arquitectura plateresca, para llenar frisas y netos de pilastras".

This was left unchanged in the 1914 edition, but in 1925 it was modified to read as follows:

"Figura fantástica, en forma de mujer de medio cuerpo arriba y de pez u otro animal en la parte inferior, que entre frutas y follajes se emplea como objeto de ornamentación"

And this definition appears in all subsequent editions of the DRAE up to and including the present.

So "bicha" did indeed mean a hybrid, though only a certain kind of hybrid, in the early eighteenth century, though by 1770 the Academy apparently considered that this definition did not warrant inclusion.

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Note added at 6 days (2013-05-16 15:06:10 GMT) Post-grading
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By the way, I have consulted these dictionaries through the RAE's extremely useful NTLLE portal:

http://ntlle.rae.es/ntlle/SrvltGUISalirNtlle
Note from asker:
Thanks. Whether the word "bicha" has a meaning of zoomorph or whether that meaning comes from this artifact might be determinable by reference to dictionaries published before this was discovered.
Thanks for your very analytic and helpful comments. I found this a particularly interesting problem and really appreciate your input.
Peer comment(s):

agree Rob James : Funny, the literal meaning I think of is "worm" or "leech." It's a tricky word which also means vastly different things in Brazil/Portugal in other contexts, but I think "Beast" is the best here considering what the thing actually is.
9 hrs
Thanks, Rob :) A strange mix-up here!
agree Emily Marcuccilli (X) : I think "Beast of Balazote" fits best here.
10 hrs
Thanks, Emily :) I agree; I think it's a very suitable name, with a good ring to it.
agree Christine Walsh : Another vote for 'Beast' /// I know the feeling :-)
10 hrs
Many thanks, Christine. Pardon me for wading in; I find this sort of thing irresistible :)
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer.
48 mins

The Balazote zoomorph/biche

One option would be not to translate it at all, or use the French version. On the other hand, the noun 'zoomorph' does exist, and is descriptive though infrequent, and would probably be understood by reasonably educated people.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoomorph_(disambiguation)

http://www.alovelyworld.com/webgua/htmgb/gua062.htm

http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/zoomorph

http://www.wikipaintings.org/en/max-ernst/birth-of-zoomorph-...


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Note added at 57 mins (2013-05-09 23:51:06 GMT)
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From 'El País'. Definition 2:




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Note added at 58 mins (2013-05-09 23:51:47 GMT)
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bicha
del lat. bestia, animal
1.(s. f.)Culebra o serpiente.
2.(s. f.)Figura ornamental característica del arte ibérico, en forma de animal o mixta, con una parte humana y otra animal.
3.(loc.)Mencionar ante alguien algo que le causa disgusto o malestar.
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Reference comments

29 mins
Reference:

Findings only

I would personally leave the Spanish "Bicha de Balazote". If you had to explain the term, perhaps via Translator's Note or other appropriate method of your choosing; while English references mention "Biche", a French word [Middle French, from Old French biche (“doe, female deer”) and bisse (“wild animal”)], if you had to use an English equivalent perhaps "Caryatid of Balazote" (see below synonyms for caryatid).

http://www.bridgemanart.com/asset/577504/Spain-Albacete-The-...
Spain, Albacete, The Biche of Balazote (statue representing a man-headed bull), limestone

http://www.myetymology.com/encyclopedia/Bicha_de_Balazote.ht...
http://www.spainisculture.com/en/museos/madrid/museo_arqueol...
Bicha de Balazote (Biche of Balazote) This sculpture represents an androcephalic bull (a mythical animal with the body of a bull and a human head). It formed part of a funerary monument in which it performed the function of guardian and protector.

http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/bicha
Caryatid in form of a savage. (Architecture) (f)

http://thesaurus.com/browse/caryatid (for a simpler term)
Definition: pillar
Synonyms: brace, buttress, caryatid , colonnade, cylinder, mast, minaret, monolith, monument, obelisk, pedestal, peristyle, pier, pilaster, post, prop, pylon, shaft, standard, stay, stele, support, totem, tower, underpinning, upright

What is a caryatid?
'Caryatid' means a supporting column carved in the shape of a person
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_caryatid Read More »
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