Gorgon

In Greek mythology, the Gorgons ("terrible" or, according to some, "loud-roaring") were vicious female monsters with sharp fangs and hair of living, venomous snakes.

Classical tradition

Baroque Medusa combined beauty and horror: Medusa, after 1590, by Caravaggio

Gorgons are sometimes depicted as having wings of gold, brazen claws, and the tusks of boars. According to the myths, seeing the face of a Gorgon turned the viewer to stone.

Homer speaks of only one Gorgon, whose head is represented in the Iliad as fixed in the center of the aegis of Zeus:

"About her shoulders she flung the tasselled aegis, fraught with terror...and therein is the head of the dread monster, the Gorgon, dread and awful, a portent of Zeus that beareth the aegis."(5.735ff)

Its earthly counterpart is a device on the shield of Agamemnon:

"...and therein was set as a crown the Gorgon, grim of aspect, glaring terribly, and about her were Terror and Rout."(11.35ff)

In the Odyssey, she is a monster of the underworld:

"...and pale fear seized me, lest august Persephone might send forth upon me from out of the house of Hades the head of the Gorgon, that awful monster..."(11.635)

Hesiod (Theogony, Shield of Heracles) increases the number of Gorgons to three—Stheno (the mighty), Euryale (the far-springer) and Medusa (the queen), and makes them the daughters of the sea-god Phorcys and of Keto. Their home is on the farthest side of the western ocean; according to later authorities, in Libya. The Attic tradition, reproduced in Euripides (Ion), regarded the Gorgon as a monster, produced by Gaia to aid her sons the giants against the gods and slain by Athena. Of the three Gorgons, only Medusa is mortal.

According to Ovid (Metamorphoses), Medusa alone had serpents in her hair, and this was due to Athena (Roman Minerva) cursing her. Medusa had copulated with Poseidon (Roman Neptune), who was aroused by the golden color of Medusa's hair, in a temple of Athena. Athena therefore changed the enticing golden locks into serpents. Aeschylus says that the three Gorgons had only one tooth and one eye between them (see also the Graeae), which they had to swap between themselves.

Other sources claim that each of three Gorgon sisters, Stheno, Euryale, and Medusa, had snakes for hair, and had the power to turn anyone who looked at them to stone. Apollodorus (11.2.6, 2.4.1, 22.4.2) provides a good summary of the Gorgon myth, while Pausanias (5.10.4, 8.47.5, many other places) supplies the details of where and how the Gorgons were represented in Greek art and architecture.

Perseus and Medusa

File:The Gorgon at Corfu Museum.JPG

The Gorgon just before being beheaded by Perseus, as depicted on a pediment from the Atremis Temple on display at the Archaeological Museum of Corfu.

Medusa was the only one of the three who was mortal; hence Perseus was able to kill her by cutting off her head while looking at her in the reflection in a mirrored shield he got from the Graeae. Some authors say that Perseus was armed with a scythe by Hermes (Mercury) and a mirror by Athena (Minerva). Whether the mirrored shield or the scythe, these weapons allowed him to defeat Medusa easily. From the blood that spurted from her neck sprang Chrysaor and Pegasus (other sources say that each drop of blood became a snake), her two sons by Poseidon. He gave the head, which had the power of turning into stone all who looked upon it, to Athena, who placed it in her shield; according to another account, Perseus buried it in the marketplace of Argos.

Archaic fanged goggle-eyed gorgoneion flanked by sphinxes on a hydria from Vulci, 540-530 B.C.E.

Protective and healing powers

In Ancient Greece a Gorgoneion (or stone head, engraving or drawing of a Gorgon face, often with snakes protruding wildly and tongue sticking out between the fangs) was frequently used as an Apotropaic symbol and placed on doors, walls, coins, shields, breastplates, and tombstones in the hopes of warding off evil. In this regard Gorgoneia are similar to the sometimes grotesque faces on Chinese soldiers’ shields, also used generally as an amulet, a protection against the evil eye. In some cruder representations, the blood flowing under the head can be mistaken for a beard.

In Greek mythology, blood taken from the right side of a Gorgon could bring the dead back to life, yet blood taken from the left side was an instantly fatal poison. Athena gave a vial of the healing blood to Asclepius, which ultimately brought about his demise.

Heracles is said to have obtained a lock of Medusa’s hair (which possessed the same powers as the head) from Athena and given it to Sterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as a protection for the town of Tegea against attack.

According to the later idea of Medusa as a beautiful maiden, whose hair had been changed into snakes by Athena, the head was represented in works of art with a wonderfully handsome face, wrapped in the calm repose of death.

Origins

The concept of the gorgon is at least as old in mythology as Perseus and Zeus. The name is Greek, being from gorgos, "terrible." There are a few cognates: Old Irish garg, "wild," Armenian karcr, "hard." Hoffman's suggested root is *gragnis; Émile Boisacq's, *greg-. The root would not be a commonly used one.

File:Douris cup Jason Vatican 16545.jpg

Athena wears the primitive form of the Gorgoneion; cup by Douris, early 5th century B.C.E.

The name of the most senior "terrible one," Medusa, is better Greek, being the feminine present participle of medein, "to rule over." The masculine, Medon, "ruler," is a Homeric name. The Indo-European root, *me-, "measure," generates a large number of words.

The name of "queen" and the magical powers indicate Medusa was a bronze-age deity, and yet deities are not beheaded by mortals and terrible ones are not really terrible if they ward away enemies. The snakes are reminiscent of the Cretan snake goddess. It is possible that the story represents the subordination of a pre-Greek religious infrastructure by new Greek superstructures able to attribute the power of life and death to themselves.

On the other hand, Marija Gimbutas ("Language of the Goddess") believed she saw the prototype of the Gorgoneion in Neolithic art motifs, especially in anthropomorphic vases and terra cotta masks inlaid with gold. The gorgon descends from the pre-Indo-European goddess of life and death, represented in various forms, of which the Gorgoneion is one.

The motif is an accretion of motifs. The large eyes, as well as Athena's flashing eyes, are a symbol termed "the divine eyes" by Gimbutas (who did not originate the perception), appearing also in Athena's bird, the owl. They can be represented by spirals, wheels, concentric circles, and other ways. They radiate the sun's rays and weep the spring rains.

Snakes also possess the eyes. The fangs of the gorgoneion are snakes' fangs. Snakes are a symbol of appeasement and increase. The round face is the moon. Sometimes Gorgoneia are endowed with birds' feet or bee wings, more symbols of regeneration. The mouth is open so that streams may flow from it. The lolling tongue is a symbol of death.

It cannot be said that these motifs belong exclusively to the European Neolithic and not to the Indo-Europeans. They appear among the Celts and Germans as well. The Balts kept snakes as household pets. As Gimbutas points out, masks with staring eyes are portrayed in Paleolithic cave art. Very likely, the goddess precedes any Indo-European/non-Indo-European distinction.

At Mycenae, traces of the ancient religion are found in elements considered characteristically Greek. A tholos tomb, there or elsewhere, is a symbol of the uterus. Solar discs studded the walls of some. The "death masks" of the shaft graves should probably more aptly be called life masks. In Paleolithic art, the dancer, who puts on a reindeer head with staring eyes, very likely became the reindeer in the dance. Similarly, a masked corpse overcame death by putting on the mask of life, a different concept from our death mask.

Gimbutas cites Gorgoneia with bees' heads on some classical Attic pottery and with bees'heads, snake heads or owl faces on some Cycladic pottery. She regards them as transitional between the ancient and classical Gorgoneia. As for the name, it is not from a solid Indo-European root. It could have been from a more ancient language, or could have translated a word in another language.

In Greek myth, only Perseus and Zeus (through Athena) own the Gorgoneion. The two must be tied together in some way; that is, the king of Mycenae was the earthly counterpart of Zeus from whom he derived his authority. The Iliad clearly expresses this divine right of bronze-age kings, which the wrath of Achilles undermined. By assuming the Gorgoneion, Perseus put on as a mask the power of life and death personified by Medusa, the cosmic queen.

Gorgons in modern culture

File:Achilles's shield (Corfu Achilleion).JPG

Gorgon decorates the shield of Achilles at the Corfu Achilleion

See also Medusa in popular culture

Like cyclops, harpies, and other beasts of Greek mythology, gorgons have been popularized in modern times by the fantasy genre such as in books, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Although not as well known as dragons or unicorns, most popular lore concerning gorgons derives from Medusa and the Perseus legend. Images of gorgons and Medusa are commonly mistaken to be the same. According to most of the original Greek myths, Medusa was the only one of the Gorgon sisters to be beautiful; the others being hideous beasts. Over time, however, and possibly even in their original day, both gorgons and Medusa came to be seen as evil monsters.

Film

• In the 1964 film The Gorgon Peter Cushing plays Professor Karl Meister that investigates the circumstances of numerous petrification incidents in a British village.
• In the movie Small Soldiers (1998), Gorgon is the home planet of the Gorgonites, a toy design of an alien race.
• The character Celia in the 2001 animated feature Monsters, Inc. is a gorgon-like creature who contemplates getting a haircut, panicking her snake-hairs.
• In the 1961 film Gorgo, the circus owner names the beast "Gorgo" after the gorgon (though it actually looks nothing like a gorgon, instead resembling Godzilla).

Games

• In Dungeons & Dragons, from which many games like Heroes of Might and Magic take inspiration, Gorgons are giant bulls with iron-like hides that have a petrifying breath. There are monsters which resemble traditional Gorgons, however, called Medusas.
• In the game Age of Mythology, gorgons are snakelike creatures armed as archers who work as your allies, petrifying and shooting enemies at range. They can be upgraded from Medusa to Medusa Matriarchs.
• The video game series Castlevania has included Medusa monsters since its inception as statue heads with snakes as hair, and later as monsters who had a snake body in place of legs, a female torso and head with snakes as hair such as in Castlevania: Dracula's Curse. The game also employed the "stoning motif" of Medusa by having the creatures fire arrows of snakes at the player, turning them into stone if they were hit. In more recent Castlevania games, Gorgon, along with Catoblepas, are often portrayed as bulls of which breaths can petrify. One weird exception is in Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow; the still-bull-like Gorgon instead breathes poisonous gas. These images follow the Dungeons & Dragons depictions rather than the more culturally prevalent humanoid with snake hair motif.
• In the game Titan Quest, Gorgons are found in Greece and resemble greenish females with red serpents as hairs and green snake bodies. First, the hero must kill the three Gorgon Queens, Medusa, Stheno and Euryales, then, through Greece, he must kill gorgons. They are last seen in the Knossos labyrinth, in Crete.
• In the game Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, gorgons are snakelike creatures born of eggs, who use very powerful dark magic and can turn units into stone.
• In the Playstation 2 game God of War, the player, Kratos, encounters Medusa and fights gorgons as enemies. The gorgons appear as large snakes with female torsos and a head of snakes as hair. Kratos also uses the head of Medusa as a weapon in turning enemies into stone. Also collecting multiple gorgon eyes throughout the game gives Kratos a larger life meter. Gorgons return as enemies in the sequel, God of War II. Medusa's sister Euryale also appears in the sequel as a boss seeking to avenge her sister's death at the hands of Kratos in the first game. Kratos defeats her and uses her head as a similar weapon to the Head of Medusa in the first game.
• In the game Star Fox 64, there is a colossal planet-killer battle satellite called Gorgon.
• In the game "World of Warcraft," a evil creature named 'the Naga' resembles the look of a gorgon. These are serpent-like creatures living underwater, sometimes with snakes on their head.

Television

• In the Disney Channel Original Series American Dragon: Jake Long, the Season 2 premiere episode ("Bring It On" ) featured the Gorgon Sisters (they later returned in the episode "Furious Jealousy"). However, Stheno was renamed Fury (she was quite infuriating) because of the difficulty to pronounce the name, and she was the most named, since she was the first to make an appearance. To give them a modern flavor, they were depicted as arrogant, self-conscious, and very air-headed, losing focus for something as trivial as a single split-end.
• "Gorgon" is one of The Infershia Pantheon in Mahou Sentai Magiranger as well as her Power Rangers: Mystic Force counterpart, Serpentina.
• In Star Trek Episode 59, And the Children Shall Lead, bellicose bogeyman Gorgon is portrayed by Melvin Belli.
• The heroes come face to face (or rather, eye-to-protective goggles) with Medusa and her Gorgon sisters in Episode 1.9: "Sibling Rivalry" of Teletoon's Class of the Titans.
• A gorgon image with moving snakes for hair appears on an ancient Roman wall in the opening credits sequence for the HBO series Rome, although the face itself is neither ugly or menacing.

Miscellaneous

• Reliefs and sculptures of Gorgon heads have traditionally been used to decorate gardens and the exteriors of churches and other older structures.
• In Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, Jack refers to Lady Bracknell as being a Gorgon.
• In A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, the Gorgon is alluded to in the description of the Marquis St. Evremonde's stone chateau.
• Charles Stross's novella The Concrete Jungle features a "scientific" explanation for the ability of a Gorgon to turn people to stone, which is then used as the basis for technological devices which play a central role in the story.
• In the manga Air Gear by Oh! Great, the storm rider Mimasaka Ryō is known as the "Gorgon Shield" due to her ability to paralyze her opponents.
• The character Rider in the visual novel Fate/stay night is really the Gorgon Medusa; in the sequel Fate/hollow ataraxia, Euryale and Stheno additionally appear in a flashback.
• "Ancient Gorgon" is Monster in My Pocket #60. It has wings, claws and snaky hair. Medusa is #26, but she appears as a beautfiul woman, albeit with snaky hair. Which Gorgon Ancient Gorgon is supposed to be is unclear.
• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game, there is a trap card known as Gorgon's Eye, which features a large yellow eye surrounded by snakes. In the Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters anime, it turns any monster played in Defense Mode to stone, and if the petrified monster is then attacked, half of the monster's defense points would be deducted from the controller's life points.
• In traditional Jamaican culture, a dragon is called a Gorgon. In Rastafarian culture, however, Gorgon is a term used for an "outstanding dreadlocks," or righteous Rastaman. The expression can be heard in many roots reggae songs, including Bob Marley's "Rat Race," The Gladiators' song "Bellyfull," and Cornel Campbell's "Gorgon rock" series of singles ("The Gorgon," "The Conquering Gorgon," "The Gorgon Is the Ruler," and "The Gorgon Is Back").
• In the web comic "Earthsong" the character K'Thonya was based on the myth of the Gorgon.

Medusa

Medusa, by Arnold Böcklin (1878)

In Greek mythology, Medusa (Greek: Μέδουσα, Médousa, "guardian, protectress"), was a monstrous chthonic female character, essentially an extension of an apotropaic mask, gazing upon whom could turn onlookers to stone. Secondarily, Medusa was tripled into a trio of sisters, the Gorgons.

Medusa in classical mythology

Some classical references multiply her into three Gorgon sisters: Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale, monsters with goggling eyes, sharp protruding fangs and lolling tongues, brass hands, and hair of living, venomous snakes. The Gorgons were children of Phorcys and Ceto, or sometimes, Typhon and Echidna, in each case chthonic monsters from an archaic world. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graiae, as in Aeschylus' Prometheus Unbound, who places both trinities of sisters far off "on Kisthene's dreadful plain":

"Near them their sisters three, the Gorgons, winged

With snakes for hair— hated of mortal man—"

File:PerseusSignoriaStatue.jpg

Perseus with the Head of Medusa, by Benvenuto Cellini.

While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as beings born of monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the later fifth century began to envisage her as a being beautiful as well as terrifying. In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a beautiful nymph , but when she had intercourse with Poseidon in Athena's temple, the goddess transformed her hair to serpents and she made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn a man to stone.

In all the versions, while Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon, she was beheaded in her sleep by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus. With help from Athena and Hermes, who supplied him with winged sandals, Hades' cap of invisibility, a sickle, and a mirrored shield, he accomplished his quest. The hero slew Medusa by looking at her reflection in the mirror instead of directly at her to prevent being turned into stone. When the hero severed Medusa's head, from her neck two offspring sprang forth: the winged horse Pegasus and the giant Chrysaor who later became the hero wielding the golden sword. Jane Ellen Harrison notes that "her potency only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended ... the basis of the Gorgoneion is a cultus object, a ritual mask misunderstood." (Harrison 1922:187). In Odyssey xi, Homer does not specifically mention the Gorgon Medusa,

"lest for my daring Persephone the dread

From Hades should send up an awful monster's grizzly head"

in the translation of Jane Ellen Harrison, who notes "the Gorgon was made out of the terror, not the terror out of the Gorgon (Harrison 1922: 187, note 3).

According to Ovid Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas in North-West Africa who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed him into stone. The story was an aetiological myth describing origins of the Atlas Mountains. In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside the shore. Furthermore the poisonous vipers of the Sahara, in the Argonautica, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood.

Perseus then flew to his mother's island where she was about to be forced into marriage with the king. He cried out "Mother, shield your eyes," and everyone but his mother was turned into stone by the gaze of Medusa's head.

Then he gave the Gorgon's head to Athena, who placed it on her shield, the Aegis. Some say the goddess gave Medusa's magical blood to the physician Asclepius, some of which was a deadly poison and the other had the power to raise the dead.

Medusa in art and legend

Tête de Méduse, by Peter Paul Rubens.

Medusa is a well-known mythological icon throughout the world, having been portrayed in works of art as well as popular media over the ages.

Examples of Medusa and the Perseus legend in the arts:

• Medusa (oil on canvas) by Leonardo da Vinci;
• Perseus with the Head of Medusa (bronze sculpture) by Benvenuto Cellini (1554);
• Perseus with the Head of Medusa (marble sculpture) by Antonio Canova (1801);
• Perseus (bronze sculpture) by Salvador Dalí;
• Medusa (oil on canvas) by Arnold Böcklin
• Medusa (oil on canvas) by Caravaggio.

Medusa in popular culture

Film

• Perseus encounters Medusa in a climactic sequence of the 1981 film Clash of the Titans. In the film it is said that she had been caught by Aphrodite herself, making love to Poseidon in one of Aphrodite's temples. Medusa was cursed by being turned from beautiful to ugly, with snakes for hair and a snake-like lower body. In addition to turning people to stone with her gaze, this Medusa also used arrows, and unnerved enemies with the rattle on the tip of her tail. Her blood was able to dissolve a metal shield, and drops of it later transformed into fearsome giant scorpions. Medusa's decapitated head also retained its power to turn creatures to stone.
• The myth was updated and used as the basis of the Hammer horror film The Gorgon, released in 1964. The character Magaera is clearly based on Medusa.
• Madame Medusa is the name of the villainess from Disney's popular animated film, The Rescuers (1977).
• The character Celia in the 2001 animated feature Monsters, Inc. is a Medusa/gorgon-like creature who contemplates getting a haircut, panicking her snake-hairs.
• The switch that turns people to stone in the 1975 film The Rocky Horror Picture Show is labelled "Medusa."

Games

• Medusas are monsters in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games.
• Medusa appears as a character in numerous computer games, among them Heroes of Might and Magic II, Heroes of Might and Magic III, Phantasy Star I and the Castlevania series. In Castlevania, creatures known as Medusa Heads are extremely common.
• The Medusa appears as an unique monster in Nethack on her own level, complete with a statue of Perseus.
• In the Playstation 2 game God of War, the player, Kratos, encounters Medusa and fights gorgons as enemies. The gorgons appear as large snakes with female human torsos and a head of snakes as hair. Kratos also uses the head of Medusa as a weapon in turning enemies into stone. Also collecting multiple gorgon eyes throughout the game gives Kratos a larger life meter.
• Medusa is the main antagonist in the Kid Icarus series of video games. She is a god in the series.
• In the video game Karnov, the player battles a monster, supposedly "Medusa," who appears with a centipede like body, a female torso and head with wiggling snakes as hair.
• In the game Age of Mythology, gorgons are snakelike creatures armed as archers who work as your allies, petrified and shooting enemies at range. They can be upgraded from Medusa to Medusa Matriarchs.
• Medusa is a new "Harbinger" in the Nightmare/Atmosfear series. She replaced Khufu in his version of the DVD Board Game, and it is presumed she will replace all other characters when they host.
• Medusa is also one of the main enemies in the game Spartan: Total Warrior. She has been tight up and is able to shoot a vertical beam with a radius of -/+ 20 feet which will turn enemy's inside the radius into a temporary stone form.
• Medusa is a hero in Defense of the Ancients, a popular custom map for Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne.
• Medusas can be found as monsters wandering the Giran Territory in the MMORPG Lineage II.
• Medusa is one of the bosses fought in the video game Wonder Boy in Monster Land for the Sega Master System.

Music

• "Medusa" is a song by the thrash metal band Anthrax from their classic 1985 album Spreading the Disease.
• Medusa is the name of the second solo album by Annie Lennox, released in 1995.
• "Medusa" is a song by the American indie rock band Helium, from their 1995 album The Dirt of Luck.
• "Medusa" is a song by the band Sweet from the European version of their classic 1974 album Desolation Boulevard.
• Medusa is the name of a hard rock band from the UK.
• "Medusa's Path" is a song by The Prodigy, from their 2004 album Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned.
• "(I Used To Make Out With) Medusa" is the name of a song entirely about Medusa by British metalcore band Bring Me the Horizon, taken from their debut album Count Your Blessings (2006).
• Medusa features in the title and lyrics of a song by black metal band Cradle of Filth called "Medusa and Hemlock," on their 2004 album Nymphetamine.
• Medusa is referenced in the song "The Eyes of Medusa" by the progressive metal band Symphony X; it is the sixth track on their third album, The Divine Wings of Tragedy (1997).
• "A Glance From Medusa" is a song by new age artist Bekki Williams from her 1996 album Elysian Fields.

Television

• In the short lived FOX cartoon series Siegfried and Roy: Masters of the Impossible, one of the monsters that the cartoon Siegfried and Roy faced was the Medusa.
• One of the monstrous teenagers in the cartoon series Gravedale High is a valley girl version of Medusa, usually referred to as "'Dusa."
• The heroes come face to face (or rather, eye-to-protective goggles) with Medusa and her Gorgon sisters in Episode 1.9: "Sibling Rivalry" of Teletoon's Class of the Titans.
• In the 1996 episode "Heroes" of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest, Jonny's enemy Jeremiah Surd creates a virtual Greek temple in Questworld, where he transforms himself into Medusa with the ability to turn anyone he sees into stone. Both Race and Jessie Bannon are turned into stone, but Jonny defeats Surd by turning the villain himself into stone with a reflective search device.
• Comedienne Julie Brown starred as the title character in her 1992 Showtime television movie Medusa: Dare to Be Truthful, a parody of celebrity Madonna and her backstage documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare.
• In the episode "Hercules and the Gorgon" of Hercules: The Animated Series, Medusa (Jennifer Love Hewitt) falls in love with Hercules, and in order to meet him, allies with Hades to become human.

Miscellaneous

• Former professional wrestler Debra Miceli used the name "Madusa" while she was in World Championship Wrestling.
• Medusa is used as one of the many symbols of the haute couture house Versace.
• The character Rider in the visual novel Fate/stay night is really the Gorgon Medusa; in the sequel Fate/hollow ataraxia, Euryale and Stheno additionally appear in a flashback.
• In the Disneyland/Disney World ride, the Haunted Mansion, there is a morphing painting of a beautiful woman in a temple turning into Medusa.
• Medusa is the name of a Marvel comics fictional character.
• Medusa is Monster in My Pocket #26, appearing as a beautiful woman with snaky hair. "Ancient Gorgon" is #60, and has wings, claws and snaky hair.
• "Medusa" is the name of a poem by Carol Ann Duffy.
• "Medusa" is the Greek word for Jelly fish.
• "Medusa" is a roller coaster ride in Orlando, FL.
• The character Alisa Southerncross in the graphic novel Sgt Frog (aka Keroro Gunso) is moddled after a Gorgon.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Jane Ellen Harrison, (1903) 3rd ed. 1922. Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion,: "The Ker as Gorgon"

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Additional material has been added from the 1824 Lempriere's Dictionary.

External links

• Theoi Project, Medousa & the Gorgones References to Medusa and her sisters in classical literature and art
• Medusa in Myth and Literary History
• On the Medusa of Leonardo Da Vinci in the Florentine Gallery, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
• Medusa Coins Ancient coins depicting Medusa
• Women in Antiquity An Essay on Medusa

Credits

New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here:

• Gorgon  ^history
• Medusa  ^history

The history of this article since it was imported to New World Encyclopedia:

• History of "Gorgon"

Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.