All Things Gorgon!
The Gorgon Medusa a very rich page with multiple links and photos. (You'll probably want to skip the Perseus section. There's an original source compilation at bottom of page at this link.
Introduction (title link above)
Medusa and the Gorgons in Greek myths
Perseus and Medusa in ancient art
Part 2 Early depictions of Gorgons
7th - 6th century BC, Archaic period
Part 3 Gorgons in architecture
ancient buildings, including
decorated roof tiles
and other Roman period funerary monuments
breastplates, shields, helmets ...
on vessels and other objects
Billonstater from Lesbos, circa 500 bce. All the Gorgon coins shown at the link are considerably older than the mostly Roman ones i've been sharing with Asiatic goddesses, as in 500 years or more older. In fact, these are among the earliest coins, which only began to come into wide use after 550 bce. The Lydian stater, ca. 610 – 600 bce, is thought to be the oldest. See this article, which also shows early examples from China and India.
Large bronze coin with Gorgoneion, Pontic Olbia, Ukraine, 450-425 bce. Armor with Gorgon on the chest has been found in Ukraine, where there was strong uptake of Gorgon iconography. These coins are found in Asia Minor, Thrace and other countries outside of Greece.
Antefix from the Bouleuterion (men's council chamber) in the temple of Zeus at Olympia, late 6th century bce. The Gorgon is an old and very widespread icon which is commonly found in temples and sanctuaries.
Gorgoneion antefix (roof-level decoration) from the sanctuary at Linora, 3 km south of Paestum, western Italy, mid-500s bce. Greek colonists brought Gorgons to Italy and Sicily, where they loom large in temple imagery. Typically tusked with lolling tongue, iconography that resonates with Kali and other wrathful goddesses in India, as well as the witch-widow goddess Rangda in Bali.
Gorgon at Selinunte, SW coast of Sicily, an island which probably has more Gorgon imagery than anywhere.
Gorgon antefix in Corfu (ancient Korkyra), on the Adriatic coast NW of Greece
A wild Gorgoneion antefix of the Ionian type, necropolis of Thasos, a North Aegean island
A Medusa antefix at Corfu, in Hellenistic style, 4th bce. Modern commentators like to break Gorgons down into "horrid" and "beautiful" types
Gorgon figure from the Via Minerva in the island of Ortygia, location of the Old City of Syracusa, Sicily. End of the 7th century bce, 56 cm. She is a Medusa, as we can see from the figure of her son Pegasus facing her breast on the left.
There are several Ortygias, all goddess-connected. This one is where the water-goddess Arethusa fled from Greece, pursued by a rapist river god.
The island of Delos was once called Ortygia, where Leto gave birth to Artemis and Apollo. Or to Apollo alone, since some say that Leto bore Artemis at the grove of Ortygia outside Ephesos, Asia Minor.
Or Asteria, the sister of Leto, shapeshifted into a quail (Ortyx), threw herself into the sea, and was metamorphosed into the island of Ortygia.
Gorgon (reconstructed) above the entrance to the pre-Parthenon temple of Athena, known as the Hekatompedon, built on the Acropolis of Athens in 575-550 bce. Like the Medusa of the Artemision of Korkyra, she wears a knotted belt with serpents.
Ceramic altar with a high relief of Medusa. Pink clay. 500-480 BC. From the emporion (trade centre) of the Bosco Littorio, Gela, Sicily, 116 cm tall.
She is carrying her sons Pegasus and Chrysaor, who in patriarchal myth sprang from her neck when Perseus decapitated her. But numerous sculptures show her, head intact, with those sons, showing that the people didn't accept this mythic attempt to kill her off.
One of the most beautiful Medusas is from the pediment of the Artemision in Corfu (Korkyra). She has snakes emerging from her neck and waist, and wrapped around her as a belt. She retains her head and is flanked by her sons and by lions. Her boots are winged, a common motif, though sometimes she is depicted with wings on her shoulders.
Fierce Medusa, crouching with Pegasus at her breast, and a lizard beside her, from a Corinthian workshop, around 600 BC, Excavated at the Sanctuary of Olympia, again a sacral context. These Gorgons in temples in patriarchal times bear comparison to the sheela-na-gigs incorporated into churches. Demand from below!
Gorgon carved in bone in Ionia (western Turkey), ca 575-550 bce. These are some of the oldest identifiable Greek goddesses, in the very early Classical period. Especially wild expression, gripping snakes in both hands.
Gold diadem with Gorgons, grapes and grapevines, now in Oxford's Ashmolean Museum
Attic black-figure olpe from Athens ,550-530 bce, signed by the famous potter Amasis. The symbolism is very close to the Medusa of Korkyra, with the facing rampant snakes on her belt and snakes emerging from her head.
You can see the morphing of styles, here from late antiquity, at the cusp of christianization. This Gorgon is from the ancient oracular center of Didyma in Ionia, western Asia Minor. Temples to Artemis and Apollo stood there.
Christian supercessionism: Medusa placed upside down as support for a pillar in the Basilica Cistern of Constantinople, now Istanbul. The repression against pagans was especially fierce under the Byzantine emperors.
More supercessionism, deliberating spatially subordinating the Old Goddess, in the Basilica cistern of Constantinople.
Medusa keystone, from one of two entrance arches at the Forum of Constantine, Istanbul
More on Gorgons from one of my old pages. http://www.sourcememory.net/art/greece/gorgons.html
Amphora of the Gorgons, said to be the oldest Gorgon imagery, from Eleusis in the Archaic period, circa 700 bce. The Gorgons are described as chasing Perseus, the slayer of Medusa. Their faces are mask-like with wide-set eyes, and the serpents coil up on either side of their heads. The reverse, shown at left, depicts the headless body of Medusa.
"Two drops of blood from the Gorgon...
One deadly, the other brings healing of diseases."
--Euripides, Ion, 1003-1005
More Gorgon iconography, scroll down for a Gorgon-emblazoned coat of armor. http://www.sourcememory.net/art/greece/gorgons2.html
Below, a very old bronze of a winged Gorgon holding two snakes, from Olympia, 650-600 bce. Her lower body is chimeric, part fish, part lion, resembling iconography of Neireids and Okeanids, the titanic beings of the springs and oceans.
But wait! there's more! So many Gorgon antefixes have been found on various temples and other buildings. Below, one from Taranto in Apulia, southern Italy, 550-500 bce.
Below, also from the 6th century bce, in Mykonos, Cycladic Islands. Aegean Maritime Museum.
From the acropolis of ancient Oesyme, northern Greece, ca 550-525. Again the tightly curled hair and African features, and again, the snakes emerging from her neck.
Yet another Gorgon antefix from Sicily, 525-500 bce. Very sharp tusks, and prominent crown of snakes.
One of six Gorgons on the House of the Naxians in the Sanctuary of Apollo in Delos, 575-560 bce.
Above, a vessel that was described as Gorgon On Tortoise (but only the one view), and Early Corinthian, which I take to mean at least 600 bce. Very sheela-like, with legs drawn up, but with vulva covered by kilt, and with snakes wound around her arms. Her eyes! very reminiscent of the Tao Tieh masks on Chinese bronzes (not that i'm suggesting a relationship). But compare:
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