Source 1: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~khump/bullfight.html

After antonius' post, I wanted to learn more about bullfighting. Three points stood out to me from the source listed above, that may relate on this discussion of Minoan bull leaping.

• Spanish bullfighting celebrates a St. Isidore, so there is a religious connection.
• "The suit that is worn by the bullfighter is known as the traje de luces or suit of lights. It consists of feminine colored tights, ballet slippers, and gold decoration. The silk suit is decorated with gold, silver, or black. Usually gold or silver is used for matadors suits, while silver or black is used for the banderilleros attire. The very feminine and tight fitting suit is meant to symbolize the combination of man and woman. The male being the matador and the tightly fitted outfit the female, together symbolizing fertility."
• The matador kills or sacrifices? the bull at the end of the fight.

Source 2: Aegean Art and Architecture, Donald Preziosi and Louise A. Hitchcock, Oxford History of Art, 1999

Artifacts:

• "Taureador" or "bull leaping" Fresco from the Palace of Knossos, Third Palace Period (using their chronology), LMII. The Taureador fresco may be the one recalled by Demetrios as it has two light colored figures, both apparently female. One appears to hold/grab the bulls horns as the bull runs at full stride. The other stands behind the bull apparently trying to catch the darker colored male 'acrobat' who appears to be doing some sort of summersault on the bull's back.
• Fresco Fragment, Tell el-Dab'a, Egypt, a Nile Delta town, est. 17th Centruy BCE, Neopalatial, (MMIIIA - B). The Nile fragment appears to depict the male acrobat in a similar manner to the Taureador fresco.
• "Boxer" Rhyton from Haghia Triadha, Villa A, Neoplatial, MMIIIA - B. The rhyton has four registers, one of which depicts a man being gored to death by a bull.
• Fresco fragments, Pylos, Late Helladic, IIIA. This depicts a sacrificed bull and procession.

Preziosi and Hitchcock make the point that enough artifact depictions exist that some sort of bull sport plausibly could have existed. I would agree that it appears to our modern eyes that the 'leaping' is not accurately depicted. But because of the fragments, including the realistic one of a death from being gored, I would agree with what I'm reading: it is not 100% symbolic and not 100% literal.

Additionally, the authors cite 'recent' (to 1999) suggested interpretations/speculations on the use of color to depict the figures in these artifacts. One of these suggestions was the emergence of young males from a 'feminine guise' through rites of initiation. [Marinatos, Minoan Religion: Ritual, Image and Symbol, 1995] This seemed to tie to the interpretation of the Spanish matador's suit in modern day bull fighting.

Another suggestion/speculation they cite is related to the purpose of bull sport: that they were re-enactments of the hunt, and the role that played in animal domestication.