Drachm (Coin) Depicting the Gorgon Medusa

411/356 BCE

Greek; minted in Neapolis, ancient Macedon, Greece

The front (obverse) of this coin depicts a Gorgon’s head with neat, tight curls. The back (reverse) depicts the head of Parthenos of Neapolis (modern Naples) laureate to right.

The three Gorgon sisters were winged deities of which Medusa is the most famous. She bore the winged horse Pegasus to her love, the god Poseidon. Her head, cut off by Perseus, was worn by Athena as her protective aegis. Neopolis, in a horse-breeding area, chose Pegasus’ mother for their coin.

When Athena discovered that Poseidon, the god of the sea, had fallen in love with the beautiful Gorgon Medusa,
she turned the girl into a monster, and that is how Medusa appears on this coin from Neapolis in Macedonia. With snakes as hair, Medusa turned to stone any man who dared to look at her.

On View: Arts of the Ancient Mediterranean and Byzantium, Gallery 151

Culture: Ancient Greek
Title: Drachm (Coin) Depicting the Gorgon Medusa
Origin: Neapolis
Date: Struck 411 BCE–356 BCE
Medium: Silver
Inscriptions: Reverse: Ν Ε Ο Π "Neop[oliton]"
Dimensions: Diam. 1.5 cm; 3.71 g
Credit Line: Gift of Martin A. Ryerson
Reference Number: 1922.4922

Gross-Diaz, Theresa, “Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1 (1994), pp. 45, no. 29, 48 (ill).
Karen B. Alexander, “From Plaster to Stone: Ancient Art at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Karen Manchester, Recasting the Past: Collecting and Presenting Antiquities at the Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), p. 29.
Elizabeth Hahn Benge, “From Aegina to Andronicus: A Survey of Coinage at the Art Institute of Chicago,” in Historia Mundi n. 5 (January 2016), p. 206-7 (fig. 8).

Art Institute of Chicago, Ancient Art Galleries, Gallery 155, April 20, 1994 - February 22, 2004 and May 16, 2004 - February 6, 2012.
Museum of Fine Arts Houston, The Centaur’s Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art, February 22 – May 16, 2004.
Art Institute of Chicago, Of Gods and Glamour: The Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries of Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Art, Gallery 151, November 11, 2012 - present.

Martin A. Ryerson (1856-1932), Chicago; given to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1922.

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