#scythia

An Achaemenid sword hilt retrofitted with a Scythian blade and scabbard,

OaL: 5.9 in/14.9 cm

 In the complicated family tree of the twin-tailed siren, there’s a mythical figure with snake legs I want to discuss: the Gorgons, sisters of Medusa, in ancient art.

While I think that the Gorgon was influenced by images of snake-legged deities, instead of influencing the images herself, I think these depictions of her are worth mentioning.

Gorgons are the collective name for the three sisters— Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa— who could turn men to stone with their gaze. While we now likely think of a young, angry woman when we hear this snake-haired character’s name, their first depictions in ancient art were very different than how they were later imagined by artists. In ancient times, Medusa and the other Gorgon sisters were often shown with grotesque, leering faces, a tongue lolling out of their mouths, and often with wings.

Both the images above are from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. On the left, a Bronze sheet in the shape of a Gorgon’s head (gorgoneion.) From the Acropolis of Athens. About 500 BCE. On the right, black figured skyphos. The Gorgon Medusa, beheaded, between her sisters, Steno and Euryale. In the manner of the CHC Group. From Boeotia. About 500 BCE. Info from museum display.

The bronze handle in the British Museum shows a typical Gorgon image, with a lolling tongue and a leer— but instead of legs, two snakes that curl upward in a style very similar to the twin-tailed siren. Two similar handles were found in the Trebeništa necropolis in Macedonia. All three images date to around 500 BCE. Images from Nikos Chausidis, The Eschatological Function of Gold Foil Funerary Jewelry in the Late Archaic Necropolises of Macedonia

As I said, I think this Gorgon was influenced by other snake-legged beings, like Typhon and the Scythian ancestral goddess. There’s only a handful of Gorgons with snake legs, and since snakes are part of her iconography, it makes sense that ancient craftsmen occasionally added snake legs to Gorgon images.

Aside from snake hair, some early images of the Gorgons show them with two snakes protruding from their necks, such as in the Eleusis amphora, daring to 670 BCE. The drawing is from Iconography of the Gorgon in Early Greek Art: from Foreign Fiend to Local Legend Kyra Tejero. 

A small statue of a Gorgon has similar snakes on her neck (which honestly remind me a bit of Frankenstein’s bolts.) Image from Chausidis, Nikos. (2022). Nikos Chausidis, Luristan standards - iconography, semiotics and purpose (English translation from Macedonian Igor Eftimovski). Skopje: Center for prehistoric research, 2022. pp. 864.

Sometimes the Gorgons are shown with two snakes for a belt. The Artemis Temple of Corfu is a good example of this, with a Gorgon on a pediment with twin snakes around her waist. (image via Dr K on Wikipedia.)

I do want to give some additional context to the images of snake-legged Gorgons. There are Gorgons similar to ancient depictions of Artemis in her Mistress of Animals or Potnia Theron form. The Mistress of the Beasts is an ancient female deity who was both a protector of animals and a mother goddess. This puts the Gorgons as perhaps a distant cousin to the Scythian ancestral goddess, whose imagery was likely inspired directly from ancient, near-east depictions of the Mistress of Animals.

Two images that show the Gorgon-Artemis connection are these plates. Both women with wings, facing front, holding birds off to the side— but the Gorgon image has her typical leer and open mouth, while the Artemis / Potnia Theron image has a regular, young woman’s face.

Left: Pottery plate showing a winged goddess with a gorgon's head wearing a split skirt and holding a bird in each hand. About 600 BCE, Kos, Greece. Image via British Museum.

Right:

A plate depicting Potnia Theron with a woman’s head, 675-600 BCE. Mykonos Museum, Greece. Image from Wikipedia, taken by Zde.

Several respected researches and academics make the connection between the Gorgons and the Mistress of Beasts. Jane Harrison calls this Gorgon the “Erinys-side of the Great Mother” in Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion.

When writing about the snake-legged Gorgon handles, Igor Eftimovski wrote “the snake-legged Gorgons were probably viewed by the locals as a representation of their primordial mythical mother-goddess” linking the Gorgons to the Scythian ancestral goddess. My own thoughts: since images of Scythian ancestral goddess was commonly found in graves, as were the kraters with the snake-legged Gorgon handles, this gives further evidence for the Gorgon's connections to the primordial Scythian ancestral goddess.

On a chariot plaque from the mid 6th century, a Potnia Theron with a Gorgon-like face squats while flanked by two animals.

Finally, there is a rare figure of a Gorgon with a single snake-tail or fish tail, on a bronze shield from Olympia, about 550-500 BCE. While an intriguing image, she is definitely an outlier, as she’s the only Gorgon from ancient art with a single tail that I've seen. Image via Wikipedia, Nanosanchez.

There is also a depiction of Medusa with the classic Scythian ancestral goddess pose: two curling vines arches out to her sides, which she holds aloft. This pediment is from the Temple of Hadrian, Ephesus, in Turkey, from 138 AD, and doesn’t have the earlier Gorgon’s grotesque facial expression.

Image via Wikipedia.

While these depictions of the Gorgons and Medusa are fascinating, and give her an ancient connection to the Mistress of Beasts, I still think that the snake-legged Gorgon imagery was influenced by other tendril-limbed goddesses. Especially as the Medusa on the Temple of Hadrian is separated by over 600 years from the Gorgon krater handles.

Sources

For the ancient connections between Gorgons / Medusa and Artemis / Mistress of Beasts, see:

Medusa, Apollo, and the Great Mother Author(s): A. L. Frothingham. American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1911), pp. 349-377.

Harrison, Jane Ellen. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. Cambridge University Press, 1908.

"The Origin and Function of the Gorgon-Head," by Thalia Phillies Howe, from American Journal of Archaeology, Vol. 58, No. 3 (Jul., 1954), pp. 209-221.

LAZAROU, Anna & Liritzis, Ioannis. (2022). GORGONEION AND GORGON-MEDUSA: A CRITICAL RESEARCH REVIEW. JOURNAL OF ANCIENT HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY. 9. 10.14795/j.v9i1.741.

For more information on the snake-legged Gorgon handles, see:

Gaunt, Jasper. (2018). Two krateres lakonikoi? The Dedications of Phanodikos son of Hermokrates of Prokonessos and of Phalaris tyrant of Acragas.  (Note: this article doesn't have any actual pics of the handles, but does talk about them.)

Nikos. Chausidis, The Eschatological Function of Gold Foil Funerary Jewelry in the Late Archaic Necropolises of Macedonia

Eftimovski, Igor. (2022). The Mistress of Dogs and warrior initiation at archaic Trebenishte. Vjesnik Arheološkog muzeja u Zagrebu. 55. 215-229. 10.52064/vamz.55.2.3.

For links on the Gorgon to Potnia Theron imagery, the chariot shield in particular, see:

Not much. I've got the impression that the clothing, weapons and artistic motifs of Thracians and Scythians were quite similar. But my only information about this comes from Adrienne Mayor's book.

"Thracian and Scythian territory overlapped, and since at least 700 BC, Thracians mingled violently and peacefully with Scythians. Archaeology demonstrates Thracian-Scythian cultural ties. Not only are Thracian goods found in Scythian graves and Scythian artifacts in Thracian graves of 560-450 BC, but the remains of women warriors have been excavated in ancient Thrace. Thracians and Scythians were neighbors and kinspeople through conquest and marriage. Many of their customs merged."