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Wananga landing Wananga landing

Canosan askos

20 November 2023

Apulian, late 3rd–early 2nd century BCE
Purchased, 2000
H 60.8cm, W 49cm, Dp 51.2cm
JLMC 186.00

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Although Medusa was a monster, at the same time she had a role as a protector. Fierce and dangerous, she was a figure of power and images of her were thought to have the ability to ward off evil: these are known as apotropaic images.

On this askos (funerary vase), Medusa faces the front, eye to eye with viewers, threatening to turn them into stone: her image would strike fear into the hearts of those who wished to do the object’s owner any harm. Here Medusa is fulfilling her role as a guardian of the realm of the dead.

The askos places Medusa between two tritons (mermen, mythical sea creatures that were part man, part horse, part fish); as the mother of the winged horse Pegasus, Medusa had a close association with horses. The askos also features two hippocamps (sea-horses) and three mourning women.


Canosan askos
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