Archaeology & History

Marble Medusa head unearthed in Roman ruins

By T.K. Randall
October 23, 2015 ·  10 comments

Medusa is a well known figure in ancient mythology. Image Credit: Arnold Bocklin Perhaps the best known of all ancient mythological monsters, Medusa was an amalgamation of a serpent and a woman with hair made from snakes and a gaze that could turn anyone to stone.

The marble head was discovered in Antiochia ad Cragum, an ancient Roman city that was founded during the reign of the Emperor Nero. Despite its sinister appearance the sculpture would have actually been used by the local people as a ward to rid the area of evil and bad luck.

Marble Medusa head unearthed in ancient Roman ruins, via @LiveScience https://t.co/Nwwg4idrz6 pic.twitter.com/jICLzj2uYv

— FoxNews.com SciTech (@fxnscitech) October 21, 2015

Not everyone who came to live in the city however shared the same beliefs - when the Christians arrived for instance they went to great lengths to destroy the statue and anything else similar to it because they deemed such items to be idolatrous.

"The people living at Antiochia later were zealous Christians who were destroying art in much the same way that ISIS is destroying remnants of the ancient past," said dig director Michael Hoff.

The statue should have been placed inside a kiln to be burned and turned in to mortar but for whatever reason it was missed and instead went on to survive all the way up to the present day.

Source: Discovery News | Comments (10)

Tags: Medusa, Romans