Aegis

Athena carrying the aegis with snails of snakes, athratic ivy of black figures, c. 540 a. C.

Alexander the Great carrying in his armor an image of the Medusa gorgona as aegis. Archaeological Museum of Naples.

Neit, XXVI dynasty of Egypt.

The egis (in ancient Greek: αἰγίς, aigís) is one of the main elements of the prodigious armor of Zeus and Athena. Although the different traditions conceived it in different ways, generally Zeus's aegis was a shield, and Athena's a goatskin cuirass. By extension, it also means 'shield', 'protection', 'defense'.

The aegis was kept in antiquity as a symbol of invulnerability guaranteed by the gods. Roman emperors used to be represented with an amulet placed on their chest, a miniature shield adorned with the head of Medusa.

Mythology

In Greek mythology, according to Homer, the aegis is the shield or buckler of Zeus, carved for him by Hephaestus, trimmed with tassels and bearing the head of Medusa in its center. Originally a symbol of the storm cloud, it probably derives from αισσο aisso, which means 'rapid and violent movement'. Another possible etymology is from the root Αιγ- Aig-, 'wave', as in Αιγαίον (Aegean), 'undulating sea'. When Zeus waved it, Mount Ida was covered in clouds, producing a kind of gigantic tornado called καταιγίς, thunder fell and men were filled with fear; By paronomasia, the name of such a storm would have been metaphorized with the Greek word to designate the goat, αιχ. Sometimes Zeus lent it to Athena (he appeared with it in the Palladium) and, rarely, to Apollo.

In a later story, Zeus is said to have used the skin of the Amalthea goat, which had nursed him in Crete, as a buckler when he went off to fight the Giants. There is also the legend that portrays the aegis as a fire-breathing monster, like the Chimera, slain by Athena, who then wore her skin as a cuirass Others even say that the aegis was the skin of the monstrous giant Pallas.

Another version tells that the aegis had actually been the skin of the goat used as a belt to hold the shield. When so worn, it was normally worn over the right shoulder, and partially wrapped around the chest as it passed obliquely in front and joined the shield under the left arm in the back. Thus, by extension, "egis" was used on occasions to refer to the shield that it held, and on others to a breastplate, whose function it partly assumed. In keeping with this double meaning, the aegis appears in works of art sometimes as the skin of an animal covering shoulders and arms, and sometimes as a breastplate, edged with serpents corresponding to the tassels referred to by Homer, and usually with the head of Medusa in the center. She is often depicted on statues of Roman emperors, heroes, and warriors, as well as cameos and vases.

Also, in Norse mythology, the dwarf Fafner wears a helmet called an aegis.

Egyptian and Nubian mythologies

The aegis also appears in Egyptian mythology, where the goddess Bastet was sometimes depicted carrying a ceremonial sistrum in one hand and an aegis in the other. Normally this resembled a necklace or gorget adorned with a lioness's head. Plato sensed the parallels between Athena and the ancient Egyptian and Libyan goddess Neit, a warrior deity who is also depicted carrying a shield.

Ancient Nubia shared many aspects of its mythology with that of ancient Egypt, and there is debate about the true original source of some of the religious concepts shared by the two cultures and whether assimilation was from Nubia to Egypt, or vice versa, or through mutual exchanges. There was a time when the Kush kingdom of Nubia ruled in Egypt.

The image of Isis carrying an aegis was discovered in Sudan, and is likely to belong to the flourishing Meroe culture, successor to the Kush culture, due to the use of Egyptian hieroglyphics and cartouches.