An upright ornament placed along the edge of a tiled roof. Antefixes were designed to conceal the joints between rows of tiles and to protect exposed wooden parts of the building from the elements. In ancient Greek, Etruscan and Roman buildings, antefixes were typically made of terracotta.

Painted Gorgoneion antefix. South Italian. Terracotta. Ca. 540 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.