GORGONEION

I ise this blog to reblog posts about the Gorgon Medusa so that I can easily access them

[onetrickpegasus-deactivated2025]

Okay, but hear me out, Gorgons, but with earwig wings. LOOK AT THOSE COLOURS!

[onetrickpegasus-deactivated2025]

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

Look at those legs! I beg someone to make a beefy archaic Medusa design.

[sarafangirlart]

Making Medusa’s parents abusive, neglectful, absent or straight up nonexistent is so shallow bc we always see godly parents trying to look out for their children even when they aren’t present parents and some like Thetis try to make their child immortal. That’s not even to mention the story where Phorcys brings Scylla back to life.

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

[medousa-archive]

2 Gorgons 1 Head

[sarafangirlart]

Are they holding a deer??

[greek-museums]

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.

Both scenes do allude to the ongoing rivalry between Athena and Poseidon in some way. In the blinding of Polyphemos, Odysseus, a hero favoured by Athena, blinds the son of Poseidon. In the bottom scene, the three gorgon sisters- monsters associated with the sea- are thwarted with the aid of Athena.

[a-gnosis]

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.

According to later traditions (and probably the most well-known version today), Medusa was once a beautiful girl who either compared herself to Athena in beauty or was raped or seduced by Poseidon in the temple of Athena. To have sex in a sacred place was absolute taboo and a very serious insult to the god or goddess which the place was sacred to. Athena couldn’t punish Poseidon, so Medusa got all the blame for it and Athena turned her into a monster. Yeah, Athena was quite an asshole in that myth and a good example of the more disgusting sides of the patriarchal ancient Greek society. Maybe that’s why I actually prefer the older tradition where Medusa was born a monster and where she had sex without getting punished for it (if that was not a rape too. Sometimes it’s hard to tell).

[a-gnosis]

Do you know if it's true that Medusa's head was used as a sign of protection for women or is that a rather new thing with people knowing the Roman version of her myth (I'm asking cause I'm thinking of getting a tattoo of her and I'd like knowing opinion?)

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.

3. Terracotta kylix, ca. 530 BCE.

[medusaspeach]

She says Heeeey~

references from theoi.com

[sarafangirlart]

When ppl draw Medusa’s cave they tend to have statues of Greek warriors scattered everywhere, but it’s actually a key detail that Medusa lives extremely far away from Greece, basically “at the edge of the world”, Polydectes sends Perseus after her not only bc she is a reliable death trap, but bc she’s extremely far away, if Medusa won’t kill Perseus then the long treacherous journey certainly will, (that’s why Hermes gave Perseus flying sandals at the beginning of his quest) if anything there would be a bunch of North African warriors in her cave and if you go by Diodorus Siculus’s writings on Queen Myrina, then Amazons statues will be everywhere too.

So realistically Medusa wasn’t a poor innocent girl who gets constantly harassed by patriarchal men, she’s a scary monster who did scary monster things like Chimera and Scylla, she doesn’t only target men, she targets anyone who goes against her, which yes, includes women that aren’t Athena.

[medousa-archive]

The running Gorgon, archaic terracotta metope from the Artemision of Syracuse (6th century BC) today at the Paolo Orsi Regional Archaeological Museum

[nemfrog]

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

Heidelberg University

[sinatraaloof]

Gorgoneion (Medusa) drawing found in the Parthenon.

[zebedeezing]

Doing a project on archaic Medusa (pre-ovid Hesiod double wings scary Medusa) and can’t get over Poseidon and Medusa having sex in a meadow. I know it doesn’t say exactly what Medusa was getting up to in the Theogony, but I like to think she was running around petrifying people, making a dragons keep of statues bodies, eating raw cattle, scaring the kids etc etc -

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

There’s no art of this by the way. None!!

[greek-museums]

In the same size difference vein, an archaic gorgon from the roof of a temple, at the Archaeological museum of Paros.

[myths-and-chaos]

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

Archaic (800-479 BCE) Greek Medusa had rounded features, a full beard, tusks! And sometimes wings! Also please note the lack of snakes for hair!

[sarafangirlart]

Phorcys and Ceto barely get any characterization and we don’t get any hints on their relationship with Medusa until much MUCH later (with Lucan’s Pharsalia saying they were actually afraid of her), so if writers want to depict them as neglectful of Medusa or looking down on her bc of her mortality bc they view it as weakness then… they aren’t technically wrong but it still rubs me the wrong way.

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.

Then I came to a realization, Persephone is another unfortunately popular victim of the retelling slop machine and she’s nerfed as well, with Demeter or others looking down on her for being a weak pathetic flower goddess who only ever actually gained power through being with Hades, she only gains power by being desirable to a man. Then I came to another haunting realization that Medusa (in these retellings) only gains power after getting raped and punished for it… she was only ever allowed her power after being desired by Poseidon. And isn’t there a whole ass trope of women becoming strong only after a traumatic assault? Don’t ppl hate that trope?

[sarafangirlart]

(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?

Honestly now I’m thinking of the angst potential with Phorcys trying to revive Medusa like he did with Scylla and being unable to do so. That’s just so sad and tragic especially if you also go with the version where he’s scared of her so his fear is part of why he never spent more time with his mortal child. That’s infinitely more depressing and interesting than making him an abusive father bc sexism and mortal hating or whatever.

[theoxenia]

the thing about medusa is. imagine being born to gods, your lover is a god, all of your siblings are divine and unaging and undying, and you– you alone– can be killed. will be killed. how fucked up is that? to live completely disconnected from the mortal world, entirely within the world of the supernatural yet your being is defined by your mortality. honestly kind of achilles of her. and we should talk about this medusa more. she's got enough tragedy to dive into

[sarafangirlart]

Also, Medusa wasn’t the only mortal child of Phorcys and Ceto, they also had Scylla who was killed by Heracles. But unlike Medusa they managed to resurrect Scylla. The damn tragedy to manage to save one mortal child but be unable to save another…