Gorgon
In Greek mythology, a gorgon (in ancient Greek γοργώ gorgō or γοργών gorgōn, "terrible") she was a ruthless female monster as well as a protective deity from the oldest religious concepts. Her power was so great that anyone who tried to look at her was petrified, so her image was placed in all kinds of places, from temples to wine craters, to promote her protection. The gorgon wore a belt of snakes, intertwined like a buckle and confronting each other.
In later myths it was said that there were three gorgons, Medusa, Esteno and Euríale. Medusa, the only mortal of them, had poisonous snakes instead of hair as a punishment from the goddess Athena. This image became particularly famous thanks to Ovid's Metamorphoses, although the gorgon appears in the oldest written records of Ancient Greek religious beliefs, such as in the works of Homer.
The gorgon took center stage on the pediment of the Temple of Artemis in Corfu. It is one of the oldest expressions of sculpture on a pediment in Greece, being dated c. 600 BC. c.
Classical tradition
Gorgons are sometimes depicted with wings of gold, claws of bronze, and tusks of a wild boar, but their most common attributes are the teeth and skin of snakes. The oldest oracles were said to be protected by serpents and gorgon images were often associated with these temples. Lionesses and sphinxes were also frequently associated with gorgons. His powerful image was adopted by the classical images and myths of Zeus and Athena, perhaps as a continuation of an older iconography.
Homer, author of the oldest sources, speaks only of a gorgon, whose head is represented in the Iliad as subject to the aegis of Zeus:
He suspended from his shoulders the dreadful agile that the terror crowns:... there the head of the Medusa, a cruel and horrifying monster, bearful of Zeus who carries the aegis.
Its equivalent on Earth is a contraption from Agamemnon's shield:
...and crowned it the Medusa, with horrendous eyes and torva seen, with the Terror and the Fobo on the sides.
Although the dating of the Homeric poems has always been controversial, it is accepted that “the Iliad and the Odyssey date from the late 9th or early 8th century BC. C., the first being before the second, perhaps by several decades." It is presumed that they existed as an oral tradition that ended up being collected in historical records. Even at that early time the gorgon appears as a vestige of the ancient powers that preceded the historical transition to the beliefs of the ancient Greeks, shown on the chest of Athena and Zeus.
In the Odyssey, the gorgon is a monster from the underworld:
...the pale terror seized me, fearing that the illustrious Persephone would not send me from Hades the head of Gorgona, horrendous monster.
About 700 B.C. C., Hesiod (Theogony, The shield of Heracles) increases the number of gorgons to three —Steno ('mighty'), Euryale ('far-rising') and Medusa ('queen')—and makes them daughters of the marine deities Phorcys and Ceto. Their home was on the far side of the western ocean, according to later authors, Libya.
The Attic tradition, collected by Euripides (Ion), considered the gorgon a monster, produced by Gaea to help her children, the Titans, against the Olympian gods. She died at the hands of Athena, who wore her skin ever since (of the three gorgons, only Medusa was mortal).
Aeschylus (c. 525–456 B.C.) says that the three gorgons only had one tooth and one eye between them, so they had to share them, but they were not given them. represented like this, perhaps to avoid confusing them with the Greas.
A good summary of the myth of the gorgons is provided in the Mythological Library of Apollodorus. Much later stories state that each of the three sisters had snakes instead of hair, and that they had the power to transform whoever looked at them in stone.
According to the Roman poet Ovid (The Metamorphoses), only Medusa had snakes in her hair, due to Athena's curse. Excited by the golden color of Medusa's hair, Poseidon raped her in the temple of the goddess, who, enraged by her desecration, transformed her hair into snakes.
Pausanias, the geographer of the II century, gives the details of where and how the gorgons were represented in architecture and Greek art.
Perseus and Medusa
In later myths, Medusa was the only mortal of the three gorgons, and Perseus was able to kill her by cutting off her head. From the blood that flowed from her neck, Chrysaor and Pegasus emerged, her two children with Poseidon. Other sources claim that each drop of blood was transformed into a snake. Perseus gave the head, which had the power to petrify those who saw it, to Athena, who placed it on her shield. According to another version, Perseus buried her in the Argos market.
When Perseus returned to Greece with the gorgon's head, the drops of blood that fell into the sea instantly turned into the coral known as ”gorgonian” while those that fell in the desert turned into snakes.
According to a tradition, Perseus or Athena used Medusa's head to petrify Atlas, transforming him into the Atlas Mountains, which held heaven and earth together. He also used it against King Polydectes, who had originally sent him to kill to Medusa in the hope of getting rid of him and marrying his mother, Danae. Perseus returned and used Medusa's head to petrify the king and his entire court.
Protective and healing powers
In Ancient Greece a Gorgoneion (stone head, engraving or drawing of a gorgon's face, often with serpents protruding wildly and with their tongues sticking out of their fangs) was often used as a apotropaic symbol that was located on doors, walls, floors, coins, shields, breastplates and tombstones with the hope of warding off evil. In this respect the Gorgoneia are similar to the sometimes grotesque faces on the shields of Chinese soldiers, also generally used as an amulet or protection against the evil eye. In some of the cruder representations, the blood running under the head may be mistakenly regarded as a beard. Although the gorgons can transform everything that looks them straight in the eye into stone. It does not mean that there are no exceptions, since those who used to be immune to their curse were those sent by Hades to watch over those who steal their souls by trapping them in stone. These vigilantes are known demons or souls with a body.
In Greek mythology, blood taken from the right side of a gorgon could raise the dead, while blood from the left side was an instantly deadly poison. Athena gave a vial of this healing blood to Asclepius, which ended up leading to his demise. Heracles was said to have obtained a lock of Medusa's hair, which possessed the same powers as Athena's head, and had given it to Esterope, the daughter of Cepheus, as protection for the city of Tegea against attack. In keeping with the later idea of Medusa as a beautiful maiden, whose hair had been turned into serpents by Athena, her head was depicted in works of art with a wondrously beautiful face, wrapped in the quiet repose of death.
Origins
The concept of the gorgon is at least as old in mythology as Perseus and Zeus, though some researchers believe the goddess has primitive origins in ancient Greek religion.
The archaeologist Marija Gimbutas believed she saw the prototype of the Gorgoneion in the Neolithic artifact motifs, especially in the anthropomorphic vessels and terracotta masks inlaid with gold. The large, twinkling eyes are a symbol called "divine eyes" by Gimbutas, which also appear on Athena's owl. They can be represented by spirals, wheels, concentric circles, swastikas, etc.
Gorgon fangs are like those of serpents and probably come from guardians closely associated with early Greek religious concepts in oracular centers.
Uses of the word
In paleontology, the use of the word "gorgon" for the description of the family of mammalian reptiles known as "gorgonopsids".