Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 14, 1903.djvu/256

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230
A Solution of the Gorgon Myth.

sistence of the coiled-up scroll, as a sort of adjunct or demonstrant to the main design, as if it were intended to keep in mind the actual coiling and outstretching of the tentacles even after they had become conventionalised to the extent shown in the Olympian Acroterion. It is to this scroll, here contended to be the survival of the tentacles, that reference was made in describing Figs. 14 and 15.

Fig. 17.

In the Museum at Palermo are portions of the frieze from the temple at Selinunte, of which I give a sketch (Fig. 18). This is of great interest and importance. Not only is the scroll retained to connect the same two devices alternately, but also in this the two remarkable eyes are reproduced in the same position in each repetition of the pattern, and above all, the Anthemion is developed into very distinct horns. One can

Fig. 18.

hardly fail to see that this design contains identically the same elements, with the eyes in addition, as that on the middle ring of the Tarentine plaque (Fig. 14.)[1] This pattern is also found on the contemporary temples at Girgenti.

  1. On the Acroterion and Lotus patterns at Selinunte. See Dörpfeldt Terrakotten in Olympia und Selinunte.