‘The challenge lies in thinking about processes rather than concepts […]. The point is not to know who we are, but rather what, at last, we want to become, how to represent mutations, changes and transformations, rather than Being in its classical modes.’ This is what Rosi Braidotti claims at the opening of her Metamorphoses: Towards a Material Theory of Becoming. It might be a matter of dispute what exactly a ‘classical way’ of being really is, but in any case, we can take Braidotti's manifesto as a good starting point for a reflection devoted to petrification. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the most static of human transformations—i.e. petrification— is also the most challenging, the most fluctuating and kinetic sort of metamorphosis. Taking Braidotti's clue, I would like to concentrate on the role of processes in the construction of a mythological self.

As Forbes Irving observes in his Metamorphosis in Greek Myth, petrification requires a specific definition within the multifaceted regnumof metamorphosis in Greek mythology: as petrification permanently fixes an object (and a stony person) in a place, being petrified is often described in terms of being rooted to the ground. At the same time, transformation into stone represents the final destination of a human being or an animal; it is the inanimate exitusof a living creature.