![]() The goal, according to a press release, is to top $1 billion in sales by the end of the year-a first for Sotheby’s and a record for any auction house. Another example is the crest of the village of dohalice in the Czech Republic.Actually, the entire upcoming Magnificent Jewels auction scheduled for Tuesday is kind of a big deal, especially coupled with the many other sales that Sotheby’s is staging throughout December. As mentioned above, Athena wears the image of a Gorgon on her shield. Putting medusa in the middle means the goddess Athena's protection. One example is the flag and insignia of Sicily and the three-legged tenesia. As a symbol, Medusa's head appears on some regional symbols. In art, she is a powerful symbol, a source of inspiration for all kinds of Arts, books, movies, and even video games. She was chosen because she represents beauty, art, and philosophy. In particular, the logo of designer Versace is embodied by the logo of Medusa's head. Medusa has appeared in some novels, including video games, movies, cartoons, and books. Medusa's petrified image is an easily recognizable feature in popular culture. She is instead a symbol of Athena's fierce military strength and strikes fear in any opponents to Athena's will.Įven in contemporary pop culture, Medusa has become largely synonymous with feminine rage. No longer is she a symbol of the earth mother. With the mounting of Medusa's head upon Athena's aegis, Medusa's power has been completely insinuated into Zeus's pantheon. Also, from the command of Perseus, the great Atlas is turned into a mountain teeming with plant life, continuing the duality of death and rebirth. In the Metamorphoses, Medusa's undead sight causes sea plants to harden above the water, retaining life beneath, an unceasing natural cycle. The decapitated head of Medusa continues to retain its power, manifesting control of both life and death. These children burst from her neck in a gout of blood, symbolic of menstruation and Medusa's power over the cycles. With the removal of Medusa's head, all threats to the Greek male order are diminished and she is able to give birth to Pegasus and Chrysaor, Poseidon's children. In order to subjugate Medusa's power to the male order, she is decapitated, and her head is used to further buttress the dominion of the male over the destructive and wily female.įinally, Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. As such she posed a great threat to the power of the Greek male-dominated sky gods. Medusa was once a powerful feminine symbol, with control over the natural cycle and in harmony with the worlds of earth and sky. This matches well with Greek views on women as a whole. In classical Greek culture, the snake is also a wily and deceptive creature, intelligent but to be distrusted in all things. The snake also has an intimate connection with the earth, as it must slither across its belly, embracing the ground. This cycle is paralleled with women's natural cycle of menstruation, which was believed to be synchronized with the cycles of the moon and tide. ![]() Snakes are used due to their shedding of skin, and their rebirth to a new skin. Her hair of snakes and reptilian skin are symbolic of the natural cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Medusa could have been a very prototypical goddess of a matriarchal society. In the western culture, historically, the powerful women have been imagined as the threat of male conquest and control, and medusa herself has long been the target of those who try to demonize the authority of women. Her meaning changes with time and culture. ![]() The 2nd-century BCE novelist Dionysios Skytobrachion puts her somewhere in Libya, where Herodotus had said the Berbers originated her myth, as part of their religion. According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on an island named Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene. Most sources describe her as the daughter of Phorcys and Ceto, though the author Hyginus makes her the daughter of Gorgon and Ceto. Those who gazed upon her face would turn to stone. In Greek mythology, Medusa was a monster, a Gorgon, generally described as a winged human female with living venomous snakes in place of hair. ![]()
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