The story of Perseus, Medusa, Cetus and Andromeda is one of the first of the founding myths who established the pantheon of the twelve Olympians and the origin of the Danaans.

Founding myths usually involve the slaying of some kind of archaic monster, perhaps the idol of a previous religion or some symbol. In this case, it was Medusa, who was brought to Greece from Libya, where she was worshipped by the Amazons as Metis, a serpent goddess. Cetus was a constellation first seen years before the Greeks by the Mesopotamians, who labelled it as some sort of huge sea-creature in the sky that represented the all-encompassing female principle, called Tiamat. Along the way, the Greeks must have adopted part of their version of the nightly heavens and conveniently used Cetus as the monster that terrorised Ethiopia.

The murder of Medusa and killing of Cetus by Perseus, the first hero and founder of Mycenae, obviously reflects how the Greeks asserted their superiority and authority over......

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Title: Perseus Myth Analysis
Approximate Word Count: 759
Approximate Pages: 4 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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