Whenever I think about Medusa, I think of the dark goddess with the snakes in her hair, from Greek mythology. If you looked at her, you turned to stone.
But we're not talking about the Medusa from Greek mythology. We're talking about the original Medusa who comes from Libya. She was adopted by Greek mythology and some of the stories and beliefs about her changed, but she originated from Libya.
In Greek mythology, Medusa (; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα, romanized: Médousa, lit. 'guardian, protectress'), also called Gorgo (Ancient Greek: Γοργώ) or the Gorgon, was one of the three Gorgons.
I had to do a little bit of research which I found really exciting; to learn about the original Medusa who comes from Libya.
We see behind the figure of Medusa, the triple moon. Medusa was one aspect of the triple moon goddess.
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That triple moon goddess was called Anatha. Anatha had 3 aspects: the waxing moon which was the Athena, or the maiden aspect the full moon which was Metis, the mother and finally the waning moon, the dark side of the moon, and that represented Medusa; Medusa known as the crone.
A crone is depicted as an old wise woman but not necessarily in a nice light. It's often associated with witches or more sinister old ladies who have lived a long life, have a lot of wisdom and knowledge, but they don't necessarily use it for the positive.
So, Medusa is the dark side, considered to be the shadow side of the maiden, Athena.
Medusa was originally a Northern African goddess. To Her faithful, she represented the mother goddess and ruled over the cycles of life. Fearful of such a powerful goddess, the Greeks sought to stop Her worship by killing Her in mythology. However, Medusa’s image lived on.
Since the Greek myth is the first place people hear Medusa’s name, it is a fitting place to start.
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The Demonization of a Goddess
The myth of Perseus and Medusa begins with the demonizing of the goddess. Described as a beautiful mortal woman and Priestess of Athena, Her transformation occurs after Poseidon rapes Her in Athena’s temple.
This act incurs the virgin goddess Athena’s wrath. And what a demon she became! Her soft skin changes into golden, impenetrable scales.
Venomous snakes grow from Her scalp, replacing Her hair. Her nails thicken and become brazen claws. Her mouth is stuck in a permanent, mocking smile, highlighted by large tusks, and a swollen tongue, which stick out of Her mouth. She is also pictured with connected eyebrows, large wings, and a mustache.
Medusa’s two immortal sisters, Stheno (“Strength”) and Euryale (“Universality”), also change. Collectively, they were called the Gorgons.
The Greek myth tells us that no man could look at them without being petrified. Some authors say Medusa and Her sisters left to live on an island in the ocean, although others say they live in Libya.
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Perseus (“I sack; I destroy; I lay waste”) enters the story when he promises to present Medusa’s head to his king as a wedding present. To complete his mission, he is given all the tools he needs, including winged sandals, a magic wallet, an invisibility cap, sword, and mirror shield.
Hermes and Athena both arm and guide him. With their help, Perseus goes to home of the Gorgons.
When he arrives at the Gorgon’s cave, he finds the Gorgon’s sleeping. Quickly, he finds Medusa. While looking at the shield, he beheads Her with one swift motion. The story says that the hand of Athena guided him.
Perseus drops the head into the wallet and flies away. Euryale and Stheno, Medusa’s sisters, awake and begin to chase him. Perseus quickly puts on the invisibility cap and escapes the Gorgons.
While these events occur, there is a birth. The children spring from Medusa’s headless neck. The first child was Pegasus, the winged horse. The second was a giant golden warrior, called Chrysaor.
The myth’s straightforward appearance hides the truth. Medusa is actually an African serpent goddess, usually said to be from Libya (the home of the Gorgons).
She is the main goddess of the Libyan or Gorgonian Amazons. Her name means “Queen” and may have been a title given to the Amazon Chief or High Priestess.
The Amazons worshipped Her as the mother aspect of The Triple Goddess: Metis, Medusa, and Athenna or Anath.
Medusa is found throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. In Egypt, She is associated with the dark goddess Neith and the Anatolian sun goddess. The Etruscans called Her Metusa and the Cretans knew her as Athana.
Her images were found in Crete, Iran, and Yugoslavia. Her most famous image is on the pediment of the Temple of Artemis on the Greek island of Corfu (also called Corcyra).
Medusa reached these areas through trade, assimilation, and diffusion.
As The Great Mother Goddess, Medusa is associated with the full moon and the menstruation (blood) mysteries. She is a symbol of the powers of life, death, and rebirth for two main reasons. The first relates to her ability to menstruate and give birth. The second comes from Greek myth. Medusa’s blood had the power to take life and restore it.
She eventually became an apotropaic figure, used to ward off death and the evil eye.
Medusa is a sexual Goddess, a sharp contrast to the Greek Athena. Her face has been compared to a vagina and the face of a woman having an orgasm. She is similar to Sheela-Na-Gig in that aspect.
Why did the Greeks depict wonderful things so horribly? The menstruation taboo is one reason. Another reason is that most women were not seen as sexual creatures. If they were, they were whores.
Medusa is a symbol for all women, not just feminists. She represents Amazonian strength and is a symbol of empowerment.
Medusa embodies the will of the determined woman who continues to fight in the face of fear and defeat. She is not only a warrior, but also a mother and lover. Like today’s woman, She fulfills many roles and defies society’s neat categories.
When hear or read Medusa’s name, see not the demon, but a woman and goddess, like yourself.
Medusa was beheaded by the Greek hero Perseus, who then used her head, which retained its ability to turn onlookers to stone, as a weapon until he gave it to the goddess Athena to place on her shield.
According to Hesiod and Aeschylus, she lived and died on Sarpedon, somewhere near Cisthene.
In most versions of the story, Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who was sent to fetch her head by King Polydectes of Seriphus because Polydectes wanted to marry Perseus's mother.
The gods were well aware of this, and Perseus received help. He received a mirrored shield from Athena, sandals with gold wings from Hermes, a sword from Hephaestus and Hades's helm of invisibility.
Since Medusa was the only one of the three Gorgons who was mortal, Perseus was able to slay her; he did so while looking at the reflection from the mirrored shield he received from Athena.
During that time, Medusa was pregnant by Poseidon.
Jane Ellen Harrison argues that "her potency only begins when her head is severed, and that potency resides in the head; she is in a word a mask with a body later appended..."
According to Ovid, in northwest Africa, Perseus flew past the Titan Atlas, who stood holding the sky aloft, and transformed Atlas into a stone when Atlas tried to attack him.
In a similar manner, the corals of the Red Sea were said to have been formed of Medusa's blood spilled onto seaweed when Perseus laid down the petrifying head beside the shore during his short stay in Ethiopia where he saved and wed his future wife, the lovely princess Andromeda, who was the most beautiful woman in the world at that time.
Furthermore, the venomous vipers of the Sahara, in the Argonautica 4.1515, Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.770 and Lucan's Pharsalia 9.820, were said to have grown from spilt drops of her blood.
Perseus then flew to Seriphos, where his mother was being forced into marriage with the king, Polydectes, who was turned into stone by the head.
While ancient Greek vase-painters and relief carvers imagined Medusa and her sisters as having monstrous form, sculptors and vase-painters of the fifth century BC began to envisage her as being beautiful as well as terrifying.
In a late version of the Medusa myth, by the Roman poet Ovid, Medusa was originally a beautiful maiden, but when Neptune (the Roman equivalent of the Greek Poseidon) mated with her in Minerva's temple (Minerva being the Roman equivalent of the Greek Athena), Minerva punished Medusa by transforming her beautiful hair into horrible snakes.
Although no earlier versions mention this, ancient depictions of Medusa as a beautiful maiden instead of a horrid monster predate Ovid.
The triple form is not primitive, it is merely an instance of a general tendency... which makes of each woman goddess a trinity, which has given us the Horae, the Charites, the Semnai, and a host of other triple groups. It is immediately obvious that the Gorgons are not really three but one + two.
That is to say, there occurred in the early thirteenth century B.C.
In 1940, Sigmund Freud's "Das Medusenhaupt (Medusa's Head)" was published posthumously.
In Freud's interpretation: "To decapitate = to castrate. The terror of Medusa is thus a terror of castration that is linked to the sight of something. Numerous analyses have made us familiar with the occasion for this: it occurs when a boy, who has hitherto been unwilling to believe the threat of castration, catches sight of the female genitals, probably those of an adult, surrounded by hair, and essentially those of his mother."
