Golden calf God of Israel was associated with or pictured as a calf/bull deity through the process of religious assimilation and syncretism. Among the Egyptians' and Hebrews' neighbors in the ancient Near East and in the Aegean, the aurochs, the wild bull, was widely worshipped, often as the Lunar Bull and as the creature of El. When Moses went up into Biblical Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments (), he left the Israelites for forty days and forty nights. The Israelites feared that he would not return and demanded that Aaron make them "gods" to go before them (). Aaron gathered
Golden Calf of Gozo Golden Calf of Gozo The Golden Calf of Gozo () is a golden statue of a calf that was supposedly discovered buried under the Hill of Ta' Gelmus in 1729 on the island of Gozo, Malta. It was supposedly brought by Jewish refugees from the destruction of Jerusalem and buried by expelled Jews around 1494, before they left the island. Whether it was the original Golden Calf is open to interpretation. A farmer named Sidor is supposed to have had unearthed a golden horn from the Calf in one of his fields, after having been told of the statue by