The Ageis was the goatskin shield of the ancient Greek deities Athena and Zeus.
History[]
Although some legends identified the Aegis as a serpent-fringed worn by Athena or a shield wielded by Zeus, the artifact was most commonly associated with being the shield gifted to Perseus by Athena in his quest to slay the Medusa, the snake-haired Gorgon with a petrifying gaze.
After journeying home, Perseus returned the shield to the gods with the head of the Medusa and Athena was so pleased with her gift that she set the head, powers intact, into the Aegis itself and wielded it in her own battles.
When the time the Greek gods was coming to an end, Athena was said to have made one last journey from Olympus with the Aegis and concealed it within the temple of the Oracle of Delphi as a symbol of the Olympians' legacy and a reminder that the deities could return. Over the subsequent centuries, however, the Aegis was lost, buried when the temple succumbed to the ravages of time.
The shield was one of many artifacts of the world researched by an anonymous archaeologist during their work for the Smithsonian Institution in the early 1930s who valued it as being beyond price.
Behind the scenes[]
In Greco-Roman art and myths, the Aegis belonged to Zeus, who was said to have crafted the shield from the skin of the she-goat Amalthea, although it was often used by his daughter Athena, who decorated it with Medusa's severed head.
