After Perseus killed Medusa by cutting off her head, he carried her head around for a while, using it as a weapon. Apparently the head worked as well to turn people to stone as she had while alive, which seems odd. He eventually gave her head to Athena, who had it mounted on her shield, as one does. On an old high-rise building with classically-inspired ornament, some terra cotta in the shape of a shield with Medusa’s head: Medusa’s gaze turned people to stone, not terra cotta, but eh close enough. I don’t remember Greek mythology well enough to say if the topic of whether Medusa’s gaze would have turned herself to stone, but I’m thinking not. So this is a masonry representation of her actual head mounted on a bronze shield; since it’s not actually her head I had no fear of being turned to stone, although I feel like I perhaps underestimated the danger of being turned to terra cotta.
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