Gorgoneion, Origin

Origin

Gorgon as pedimental sculpture on the Temple of Artemis, Corfu

According to Marija Gimbutas, gorgoneia represent certain aspects of the Mother Goddess cult associated with "dynamic life energy" and asserts that the images may be related to a cultural continuity persisting since the Neolithic period defining the gorgoneion as a quintessentially European image.^[2] Jane Ellen Harrison, on the other hand, claims that many primitive cultures use similar ritual masks in order to scare the owner from doing something wrong, or, as she terms it, to make an ugly face at the owner: "The ritual object comes first; then the monster is begotten to account for it; then the hero is supplied to account for the slaying of the monster".^[3]