Apotropaia

800.00

18”x 18”

Medusa was a priestess of Athena, and was known for her beauty, especially in regard to her hair. She caught the eye of Poseidon, and the sea god enticed her into an affair. One of their dalliances took place in the temple in which Medusa served, something the did not go unnoticed by the goddess. Athena cursed her, turning her famed locks into a mass of poisonous serpents, and to make her umbrage with her former priestess’ sacrilege eminently clear, turned her once pleasing face into a visage so grotesque that anyone who laid eyes upon it would be petrified with horror. The life she knew now irretrievably in the past , Medusa resigned herself to exile after a long, and bitter pilgrimage to the remote lands of Hyperborea, taking refuge in a cave with the Gorgons Eurayle and Stheno. After a long time, and several attempts on her life by would be heroes in search of glory, who now decorated the lands she inhabited as statues , Medusa was killed as she slept by Perseus. Her head’s ability to turn anyone who looked at it into stone proved a valuable weapon for Perseus, and when his adventures reached their end, he gave the Gorgon’s head to Athena in thanks for her aid. Athena then set the head into her aegis, so that any who faced her in battle would not only be unsettled from Medusa’s baleful stare, but would also feel the subconscious attack of what became of those who provoked her ire.