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.
