Bucranium

bucrania; from Latin būcrānium, from Ancient Greek βουκράνιον (boukránion) 'ox's head', referring to the skull of an ox) was a form of carved decoration commonly used in Classical architecture.

Its application to the field of prehistoric archeology is relatively recent and is mainly due to the work of the British archaeologist James Mellaart dedicated to the Neolithic site of Çatalhöyük.

A rich and festive Doric order was employed at the Basilica Aemilia on the Roman Forum; enough of it was standing for Giuliano da Sangallo to make a drawing, c 1520, reconstructing the facade (Codex Vaticano Barberiniano Latino 4424); the alternation of the shallow libation dishes called paterae with bucrania in the metopes reinforced the solemn sacrificial theme.

In a first-century fresco from Boscoreale, protected by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, bucrania and cistae mysticae hang on ribbons from pegs that support garlands, evoking joyous fasti.

At the Temple of Vesta, Tivoli, designed using the Corinthian order, motifs interpreted by the architect Andrea Palladio as conventional skull bucrania adorn the frieze,[5] although these are actually fleshed ox heads with eyes.