Almost all religious traditions contain images of syncretic entities (hybrids — in English-language literature) that combine the features of various animals and humans. It is hard not to be surprised by the extraordinary similarity of syncretic images of different eras and cultures. Thus, the image of a man with a bull's head is present in cave paintings of the Paleolithic, in Sumerian "friezes of the fighting" of the early dynastic (hereinafter-RD) period, in numerous monuments of classical Greece (the image of the Minotaur), in Buddhist iconography of the god Yama... Only the most famous examples are listed here, but they are enough to make you wonder why this motif is so insistent. Even more surprising is the fact that there is a small amount of research devoted to analyzing the problem of syncretists in a comparative religious context or trying to clarify the symbolism behind syncretic images. Key words: transfiguration, Theseus, Minotaur, Gilgamesh, Huvava, Anzud, Dionysus, griffin, cherub, cave cults, Mother Earth, Tauromachia, religious paradigm. Among the publications of recent years, first of all, we should mention the works of V. K. Afanasyeva, among which the monograph "The Eagle and the Snake..." is of particular interest for our topic [Afanasyeva, 2007], where the author focuses on the image of the lion-headed eagle Anzud and its perception in various periods of Mesopotamian history. In the monograph of A. V. Podosinov [Podosinov, 2000] based on the analysis of extensive Middle Eastern and Near Asian material, the problem of the origin of cherub images from the vision of the prophet Ezekiel is considered. Yu. V. Andreev in his work "From Eurasia to Europe. Crete and the Aegean World in the Bronze and Early Iron Age "[Andreev, 2002] devoted one section to the study of the place of fantastic creatures (griffins, sphinxes, "minotaurs") in the religious system of the Minoans. O. S. Sovetova's monograph (Sovetova, 2005) is devoted to the monuments of Tagar c ... Read more