Medusa part of their religion. Medusa was beheaded by the hero Perseus, who thereafter 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. In classical antiquity the image of the head of Medusa appeared in the evil-averting device known as the "Gorgoneion". The three Gorgon sisters—Medusa, Stheno, and Euryale—were all children of the ancient marine deities Phorcys (or "Phorkys") and his sister Ceto (or "Keto"), chthonic monsters from an archaic world. Their genealogy is shared with other sisters, the Graeae, as in
Medusa (DC Comics) sisters Euryale and Stheno. She eventually met the gaze of Poseidon. Athena took notice of this, and cursed Medusa, transforming her hair into snakes and giving her a deadly gaze that turns any who look into her eyes to stone. The hero Perseus was given the task of slaying Medusa and taking her head. After using her decapitated head for his own use, Perseus threw it into the sea as he believed it too dangerous to keep. At some point before Medusa's death, she mated with the cyclops Polyphemus and gave birth to the serpentine giant Cyclon. The god of