According to the Greek poet Hesiod, Medusa lived on the island of Sarpedon in the Western Ocean near the Hesperides. The historian Herodotus later placed them in Libya.
Medusa lived with her two sisters, Stheno and Euryale, in a cave surrounded by statues. These statues used to be living people and animals, but the three gorgons' gaze turned them to stone. Medusa's sisters were immortal, but she could be killed. After the hero Perseus beheaded her, he gave her snake-haired head to the goddess Athena, who placed it on her shield. Medusa's final home was thus Athena's shield: the aegis.
