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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Ed Snible, post: 2926578, member: 82322&quot;]The dealer Matt Kruezer also claims that the head depicts Alexander, and that the wings symbolize divinity.&nbsp; Historically scholars used to think the head was Seleukos himself, then decided it was Medusa.</p><p><br /></p><p>In 1825 E. Q. Visconti identified the winged head as probably Medusa, refuting earlier scholars who believed the head depicted Seleukos himself.<font size="2">&nbsp; </font>Visconti saw the head as a woman. He believed the type refers to the founding of Antioch: “Mount Silphius had an old high altar at which it was said that Perseus honored the father of Zeus when returning from his expedition against the Gorgons. Seleukos founded a temple of Zeus Bottiaios venerated by the Macedonians in the same place where Perseus had left a monument of passage”.</p><p><br /></p><p>Mionnet published the type twice, once described as Seleukos and once as Medusa.&nbsp; Janus Six saw the head as Medusa, as did Percy Gardner and E. Babelon.</p><p><br /></p><p>The problem with Visconti’s identification is that this “Medusa” isn’t ugly!&nbsp; “She” lacks a visible tongue. There are no bulging eyes and no earring. The hair has unusual curls and only a hint of ties below the chin. It isn’t even clear if there are snakes. Percy Gardner said the winged head “presents a living face instead of a dying one” and artistically “an entirely new departure”. He believed it to be the earliest profile-head of Medusa and proposes to use it to judge, by style, other ancient representations of Medusa.</p><p><br /></p><p>It’s possible that ancient people themselves were confused about who was depicted on this type. The die cutters’ intention could have been a deified Alexander. The common people, in regions without a tradition of using wings to signal post-human divinity, could have seen a coin depicting Medusa. Die cutters in the branch mints might not have known what they were replicating.</p><p><br /></p><p>Percy Gardner’s identification of this coin as a “beautiful Medusa” is a key piece of evidence in art history. Furtwängler, in his article on gorgons ain Roscher’s <i>Lexicon</i> in the late 1880s, dated the Medusa Rondanini original (the Versace logo prototype) to the late fourth century BC on the basis of similarity between the profile of the Medusa and these coins.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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