If you stood before the entrance to the early 6th century BC temple of Artemis on the island of Corfu, you would confront this 10-foot-tall stone Gorgon set up there to guard the temple and its treasures.

The temple is long gone, but centuries after its collapse, shattered fragments of Medusa, the guardian Gorgon on both the east and west pediments, were dug from the dirt in 1911. The reconstructed west pediment, the oldest carved stone pediment in Greece, is now on view in the National Archeological Museum in Corfu.

Like other ancient Greek sculpture, this limestone Medusa was painted in bright colors, faint traces of which remain. Her pupils, barely incised, were painted black, her stuck-out tongue bright red, her sharp teeth white. Using those faint traces of color as clues, Michael Lahanas, in his fine article "Medusa and the Artemis Temple of Corfu," has "colorized" her with a red dress, black pupils set in bright green irises, green snakes in her hair, and red lips and tongue against white teeth. The result is garish, if not grotesque, and quite a shock to those who still imagine Greek sculpture to be pristine pure white marble.

Other purists are put off by Medusa's colossal size and the fact that her head towers over the peak of the pediment, thereby breaking its lines instead of being neatly confined to the triangular space below, as sculptors strove to do in the Classical period. A pox on such critics, who fail to appreciate the majestic force of this Archaic figure as she breaks free from the confines of her perch and projects her power directly down on us!



The dotted lines in this old drawing indicate missing parts, faint traces of which were left on the broken pediment when its fragments were discovered in the dirt. Some of the most fragile parts were the snakes, or parts of snakes. Remaining intact were the two interlocking snakes around her waist, whose design suggests a bronze belt or waist cinch that may have been in fashion. (But why are these two snakes bearded, like those held by Cretan priestesses and by female Etruscan underworld demons like Vanth?) Those snakes stayed whole because they were incised or carved directly on her body. The stone snakes in her hair were probably not free-standing, either, but attached to, or carved on the stone background of the pediment behind her, like the highly stylized snakes (plainly visible in the top photo) that crawl from her waist along the wall in abstract geometric patterns remarkably like the snakes in pre-Columbian stone carvings.

A problem for modern viewers may be that the upper half of her body is twisted 90 degrees to confront us, while the bottom half is seen in profile, with the legs spread wide in a half-kneeling position - a conventional archaic formula for a running figure. But the resulting pose sends a mixed signal: Is this monster confronting and menacing us? Or is she running away?



The Gorgon is flanked by a pair of lions or lionesses, posing a triple threat to anyone thinking to despoil the temple of its sanctity or treasures. She also carries or holds up two creatures that identify her as Medusa. Though they are omitted in the drawing, the restored pediment shows her holding her two sons: in her right hand, the winged horse Pegasus - lost except for his hind quarters, still visible beside the lion on her right; and, in her left hand, the boy Chrysaos (Golden Sword); for a closeup of him, click on the highlighted Lahanas link above. Both sons were born as twins from Medusa's rape by Poseidon. For before she was turned into a hideous snake-haired monster by a jealous Athena, Medusa was a lovely but vain and foolish girl who boasted of her beauty and her golden locks.

Or so says one version of the myth. Another says Pegasus and Chrysaos were born from the blood that spurted from Medusa's neck after Perseus cut off her head. Some idiot has dared complain that the scene on the Corfu temple is therefore incorrect! Well, off with his head! Or better still, may he turn to stone!

But you still want to see the entire 56-foot-wide pediment? Here it is, then, or most of it, and as you can see, as it follows the roof line down to the corners, the space for figures becomes more and more cramped:



To judge from the tiny figures in these three surviving fragments near the corners, the theme they illustrate is: The Greeks and the Gods vs their Enemies, i.e. Civilization vs Barbarism. So, on the left, we see Greeks vs Trojans, with a dead Trojan lying in the corner, and old King Priam seated on his throne. (To see these in large detail, click on the Lahanas link above.) On the right, where the Gods of Olympus are defeating the Giants, the sole surviving panel shows Zeus zapping a Giant with a thunderbolt. You can easily imagine what sort of figure would have gotten squeezed into this corner.



Do you notice anything odd about this Giant? What strikes me is how in face, figure and pose he resembles Medusa!

Odder still would be a fusion or confusion of Medusa with Artemis, the goddess to whom the temple was dedicated. Does it not seem odd that the dominant figure on the temple, displayed not once, but twice, and towering over both the west and east pediments, is Medusa, not Artemis? And that Artemis herself seems not to have appeared on her temple at all? Could it be that Medusa IS Artemis? Odd indeed, considering the hideousness of Medusa, and the supposed beauty of Artemis, the virgin huntress. But if Artemis was, as so often alleged, the ancient Mistress of the Beasts, who so often appears between, and sometimes holds, two animals, maybe Medusa and Artemis were once thought to be two aspects of one and the same awesome and fearsome goddess? In his book, "The Goddess and the Warrior: The Naked Goddess and Mistress of Animals in Early Greek Religion," Nanno Marinatos argued just that: that in the Corfu temple, Artemis and Medusa were "conflated,"