Terracotta antefix with the head of Medusa

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The head of the Gorgon Medusa, known as a gorgoneion, was a popular motif for terracotta antefixes, ornamental covers used to conceal the ends of tiles along the edge of a roof. Antefixes of this type were especially pervasive in Sicily and southern Italy. During the Archaic period, Medusa was depicted as a monstrous creature with wide eyes and a fierce grin, a type exemplified by the antefix. The exaggerated features and the remarkably well- preserved white, black, and red polychromy would have allowed this face, repeated on multiple antefixes, to be seen by viewers on the ground.

Greek and Roman Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of Greek and Roman art comprises more than thirty thousand works ranging in date from the Neolithic period (ca. 4500 B.C.) to the time of the Roman emperor Constantine's conversion to Christianity in A.D. 312. It includes the art of many cultures and is among the most comprehensive in North America. The geographic regions represented are Greece and Italy, but not as delimited by modern political frontiers: Greek colonies were established around the Mediterranean basin and on the shores of the Black Sea, and Cyprus became increasingly Hellenized. For Roman art, the geographical limits coincide with the expansion of the Roman Empire. The department also exhibits the art of prehistoric Greece (Helladic, Cycladic, and Minoan) and pre-Roman art of Italic peoples, notably the Etruscans.

Metropolitan Museum of Art