GORGONEION

We seriously need more depictions of Medusa where she is built af

Honestly I wanna see someone do Medusa and her parents like Eda and her mom in the owl house, were she’s the one who distances herself from them bc they’re trying way to much to make her immortal

Archaeological Museum of Eleusis:

A proto-attic amphora, used to bury a child. On the neck there is a scene from the Odyssey; Odysseus and his companions blind the cyclops Polyphemos. The body bears a depiction of Perseus fleeing from the Gorgons Stheno and Euryale, after the beheading of their sister Medusa. Athena stops them from pursuing him. Between these two scenes there is a scene where a boar is attacked by a lion.

(Middle of 7th century B.C)

The painting on the amphora has suffered some damage. Black and white were primarily used- the reddish tones are a result of fading. Decorative motifs are superimposed on some figures and fill the blank spaces between them.

The cartoon-like feel of the composition and the styling of the Gorgons are probably deliberate since within the amphora a child was burried. We can imagine that these scenes were proably a favourite part from these tales.

A drawing of the Gorgon Medusa that I made for Medusa, a Swedish popular science magazine about ancient Greece and Rome. I was inspired by archaic and early classical depictions of her. I’m still a bit unsure about the colours, though.

Early Greek writers, like Hesiod, portrayed Medusa as a monster from the beginning, born by the two sea gods Keto and Phorkys who produced many other monstrous beings. Unlike her two sisters, Medusa was mortal. When Perseus cut off her head the winged horse Pegasus was born, Medusa’s child with the god Poseidon who once had slept with her on a meadow with spring flowers.

Gorgons and Gorgoneia (Gorgon heads) seem to have been used in ancient Greece as apotropaic symbols to ward off evil, but it was not used to protect women specifically. They appeared on funerary monuments, temples, artisan workshops and kilns, private houses, furniture, drinking cups, personal amulets, helmets and ornamented shields among other things. "Their countenances, grisly and transfixing, were thought to have protective, defensive powers by intimidating the spectator and provoking fear in the enemy" (Dangerous Beauty: Medusa in Classical Art by Kiki Karoglou).

1. Relief with Achilleus carrying a gorgon shield, ca. 600 BCE.

2. Terracotta roof tile, ca. 540 BCE.

She says Heeeey~

Fig. 23. Gorgon. Necrocorinthia: a study of Corinthian art in the Archaic period. 1931.

And Poseidon bruhhh Poseidon you know he dgaf about non of that miscellaneous loss of life, bad bitch detected, he really pulled out all the stops with his charm magic - ‘a soft meadow amid spring flowers’ uknow

Please enjoy this Archaic Gorgoneion I saw at a museum last year!

It feels like these writers are nerfing Medusa and making her more pathetic than she ever actually was to make her more sympathetic and tragic, I know in my heart that most of them didn’t even come up with this interpretation on their own and instead copy how other retelling authors wrote Medusa and her family, bc I refuse to believe any of them read the Pharsalia and decided to ignore the incredible angst potential.

(Scholia to Lycophron's Alexandra, marginal notes by Isaak and Ioannis Tzetzes)

Ok nevermind I have receipts now, Phorcys (and probably also Ceto) wouldn’t reject his mortal daughter for being “weak”. In fact Medusa isn’t his only mortal daughter but also Scylla and when she was killed by Heracles he went above and beyond to bring her back, he fucking loved his children and even if Lycophron’s Alexandra didn’t exist you can still look at other gods to see how they treat their mortal offspring, just look at Ares, Apollo, Zeus, Poseidon and ESPECIALLY Thetis being super protecting and loving towards their mortal children, even trying to make them immortal and being absolutely DEVASTATED when they die, so why would Phorcys and Ceto be any different?