Gorgoneion

The gorgoneion or "bodiless head of fright" antedates by many centuries the Gorgon with a woman's body.

Pausanias twice mentions a gilt-bronze aigis with the head of Medousa, or gorgoneion, at its center, placed high on the south wall of the Acropolis above the Theater of Dionysos [Figs. 4, 9].

Greek drinking cups with low bowls, kylices, were used in sixth century BCE Athens with representations of the gorgoneion on the inside of the bowls and on their outsides, depictions of pairs of huge eyes—to safeguard the drinkers from the Evil Eye (see above, Illus. 6, p. 137).

Even where, as on a kratēr of the Tarporley Painter, the reflection is centred and placed where we expect the gorgoneion, it appears upside-down and is thereby markedly different from the gorgoneion.