Medusa has been featured in several works of fiction, including video games, movies and books. The petrifying image of Medusa makes an instantly recognizable feature in popular culture. Not only that, but being unaware of the nature of afro-textured hair left them unable to describe locs or dreadlocks as anything other than ‘snakes’. Unlike Perseus, the protagonists in these stories actually have to fight her. Being punished for her own victim hood made Medusa an emblem of the discrimination and violence faced by real women.

In these she takes two forms.

The only difference between Medusa and a human, or even a goddess, was the snakes that crowned her head. In a late version of the Medusa myth, related by the Roman poet Ovid (Metamorphoses 4.770), Medusa was originally a ravishingly beautiful maiden, "the jealous aspiration of many suitors," but when she was caught being raped by the "Lord of the Sea" Poseidon in Athena's temple, the enraged Athena transformed Medusa's beautiful hair to serpents and made her face so terrible to behold that the mere sight of it would turn onlookers to stone. The final treasure of the Hesperides was the winged sandals of Hermes.

Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter used her head as a weapon[4] until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield. According to Ovid, in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed him into stone when he tried to attack him.

The power of Medusa’s head was so potent that it could petrify even the largest and strongest of the Titans.

Now before I continue let me lay out some context for you all. His petrification was slow and painful. This was in contrast to English liberty, which had been depicted as wise and powerful Athena. This article laid the framework for his significant contribution to a body of criticism surrounding the monster. Even a piece of Medusa’s head, like the one Heracles gave to Sterope, was enough to repel enemies and cause uneasiness even if it didn’t have the power to petrify.

As the Roman world embraced Christianity and its texts, Medusa’s evil status was furthered. If you were a Caucasian from a Greek civilization trying to create a story, or mythology that is to be used by future generations with genetic survival amongst the melanated masses as a primary objective, what would you say? So if this black woman is a threat to the genetic survival of caucasians then how do you convince all future generations of caucasian males to avoid this black woman by any means, at any cost? The good guy sometimes doesn’t win and innocent people are sometimes harmed. As Perseus fled the cave, however, he and the Gorgons were no longer alone.

In art, Medusa and her sisters had every terrifying feature the Greeks could imagine.

Like many pretty young women in Greek legend, she attracted the attention of a god.

Her

As art interpretation focused on the ways in which art represented the female body for the view of men, Medusa’s ability to punish men for looking at her became a powerful symbol. So for those members of the society who took it upon themselves to implement strategies for the genetic survival of the caucasian collective, it became a matter of life and death to exterminate any desire within the caucasian collective to have intercourse with melanated people.

This was the last mention of Sthenno and Euryale in mythology. The loops and curves of a snake’s body have always been a favorite subject in art for this reason, and the figure of Medusa provided many of them for the artist to show off their skill. In Ovid's telling, Perseus describes Medusa's punishment by Minerva (Athena) as just and well earned.

Judeo-Christian belief had always seen snakes as part of mankind’s fall from perfection and her serpentine hair made Medusa more recognizably evil than ever. Perseus, therefore, with Athena guiding his hand, kept his eyes on the reflection in a bronze shield as he stood over the sleeping Gorgones, and when he saw the image of Medousa, he beheaded her. Additionally, the famous snakes on her head gave the artists a chance to display their skills with shape and texture. She gave her shining shield of bronze, the aegis, for protection. Medusa’s body was often shown as abnormally large and disproportionate.

1922. Medusa was pregnant with Poseidon’s children at the time hence the story goes on to say that when her head was cut off, her two children suddenly popped from her neck. Art in this respect lagged behind poetry."

The most famous story of Medusa is that of her death at the hands of the great hero Perseus. The ancient Greeks saw Medusa as a particularly terrifying monster of legend. It was often placed at the entrance to buildings, either in a relief carving or a floor mosaic, to prevent malicious spirits from entering. On his journeys, he came across the Titan Atlas holding the world on his back and used the head to turn him to stone.

Italian fashion company Versace took a completely different view of Medusa when they made her their logo. They knew if they maintained a pattern of interracial relationships at some point, there would no longer be a such thing as ‘white people’. Another example is the coat of arms of Dohalice village in the Czech Republic. King Polydictes wished to marry Danae but Perseus, by then an adult, opposed the union of his mother and the untrustworthy king. Athena used it to terrify her enemies and even a crude representation of it could strike fear into evil spirits and malicious beings. Lost in the telling are Medusa’s tragic origins and the unbelievable fate of her famous head.

Athena gave some of the Gorgon’s blood to the legendary surgeon Aesclepius.

The image of the brave hero slaying the hideous beast endures in art, poetry, and song. Medusa’s spirit stayed and faced him down. Hesiod said they flicked their tongues, much like snakes.

My work has also been published on Buzzfeed and most recently in Time magazine. I’d imagine even the least intellectual amongst the white people in early Greek civilizations were aware of the genetic threat of ‘race mixing’ with melanated people.

The modern take on Medusa often emphasizes her femininity by making her a seductive, sexual figure. She had many suitors and was especially known for her beautiful long hair. Medusa is played by a countertenor in Jean-Baptiste Lully and Philippe Quinault's opera. Perseus could not look at Medusa or he would be turned to stone.

Still portrayed as a human woman, albeit with an increasingly thick nest of snakes on her hair, Medusa became a symbol of the Jacobin faction. As a virgin goddess, the act was particularly loathsome.

This story only appears in one source, however.

The head of Medusa was the single most frequently used symbol in ancient Greek art. He challenged the young man to kill Medusa and bring back her head. Even this was not the end of the story for Medusa’s head, however. Some versions of the story claim that Medusa’s sisters underwent the same change from beautiful to horrible, reconciling the disparity of showing only Medusa herself in that way. An archaic Medusa wearing the belt of the intertwined snakes, a fertility symbol, as depicted on the west pediment of the Temple of Artemis in Corfu, exhibited at the Archaeological Museum of Corfu.

The Rape (or Seduction) of Medusa.

[7] In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside the shore during his short stay in Ethiopia where he saved and wed his future wife, the lovely princess Andromeda. If you think you know the whole story of Medusa, think again – here’s everything you never knew about the mythical Gorgon. They also shared a single tooth, taking turns to eat their meals. But there is much more to the legend of Medusa than just her beheading, and her legacy is far more complicated than that of any other ancient monster. Medusa was a temptress among the gods, and Poseidon had impregnated the mortal while in the temple of Athena. The triple form is not primitive, it is merely an instance of a general tendency... which makes of each woman goddess a trinity, which has given us the Horae, the Charites, the Semnai, and a host of other triple groups. I’ve always had my suspicions about the story of Medusa being of African origin or about African women yet I’ve been unable to find direct references to prove it. Even in the stories that came before descriptions of her beauty, Medusa’s tale was bound to the god Poseidon.

From ancient times, the Medusa was immortalized in numerous works of art, including: Medusa remained a common theme in art in the nineteenth century, when her myth was retold in Thomas Bulfinch's Mythology.

In the original story she was killed in her sleep with no chance of fighting back, and most of the deaths caused by her powers were when she was used as a weapon by someone else.