A Gorgoneion typically features the face of a Gorgon, presented with most unattractive features. This image includes staring eyes, protruding tongue and a beard. It is not clear whether the white curls at her hairline represent the snakes traditionally associated with Medusa. Gorgoneions were often used in Greece as atropaic images intended to avert evil. This gorgoneion, which appears on a piece of Attic black-figure ware dated to c 530 BCE and attributed to Nikosthenes, and is held at the Antikensammlungen in Munich.
