Ghatanothoa was created by Lovecraft in collaboration with Hazel Heald in "Out of the Aeons" (1933). It is imprisoned within a volcanic fortress on the sunken continent of Mu. Any living creature that looks upon its form is petrified — skin, flesh, and bone turning to a leathery rigidity — while the mind remains fully conscious within the immobile shell.
This fate, worse than ordinary death, can persist for millennia. The civilization of Mu is depicted as having organized its religious life around the appeasement of this entity.