By: Nazila Fathi
March 7, 2022– The Amazons, or women warriors, were real. Ample archeological evidence discovered in the recent decades shows that the Amazons were strong independent women who lived in an area referred to as Scythia, which stretches from the Black Sea to Mongolia.
The evidence confirms ancient Greek stories that these women were horse-riding, spear-throwing, pants-wearing, and fearsome fighters.
These women offer another reason for girls to want to be strong girls without the need for a fictional Wonder Woman.
The Greeks and the Amazons
The Greeks called women warriors who lived in Scythia the Amazons. Parts of this region were under the control of the Greeks’ arch-nemesis: Persia
These women were the single most popular subjects in Greek vase paintings. They appeared in city murals and sculptures. They were part of Greek myths in which they died young and beautiful almost always by a Greek male hero. Hercules, for example, the last of the mortals to become a god, fulfills his ninth labor by taking the magic girdle from the Amazon queen Hippolyta.
The Greeks expected strict division of male and female roles. Therefore, nothing unsettled them more than the idea of the lives of a nomadic Scythian culture where boys and girls wore the same clothing and learned to ride and hunt together. These girls grew up to become horse riders, archers, wrestlers, and hunters. Their independence awed and scared the Greeks.
So, they depicted Scythian women as inferior, referring to them as “foreign barbaric women in far-away lands.”
The Greeks constantly fought the Amazons. Imagine facing 500 of these fierce women on a battlefield!
Amazon Tombs
The greatest number of graves belonging to warrior women have been found in the area north of the Black Sea in recent decades. The graves provide an insight into the lives of these women and shed light on how the Greeks described them.
It was only after DNA tests showed that the skeletons belonged to women that archeologists confirmed that there was much truth to what was previously known as Greek myths about the Amazons. DNA tests on the remains showed sex and age at the time of death and also everyday wear and tear on the bones, such as diseases, healed injures, and fatal blows. A lifetime of horse riding was evident in the bowed legs of the remains.
Warrior queens were buried in splendid tombs with their weapons as well as jewelry, very similar to descriptions by classical historians like Herodotus, the fifth century B.C. author known as the father of history.
One tomb belonged to a sixth-century BC warrior with a bracelet of fox teeth and gold earrings.
The skeleton of another female still had a bent arrowhead embedded in the cavity.
On average, the weapon-bearing females measured 5 feet 6 inches, making them tall for their time.
In Ukraine, where people are showing courage and bravery against invading Russian forces, women warriors were buried with heavily armored war belts with bronze or iron plates. A grave in Ukraine held a warrior woman, a child, a horse, along with 21 arrows in a leather and wood quiver, according to prominent Stanford scholar, Adrienne Mayor, who authored The Amazons, Lives, and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World.
Amazon Lifestyle
These women smoked, drank, danced, and played music. Ancient Greek sources and modern archeological discoveries confirm that two intoxicants, fermented mare’s milk, and cannabis, were part of everyday life in Scythia. Herodotus describes Amazons dancing and singing around the Kannabis fire circle.
Further, these self-sufficient women belonged to no men and were free to have sex with men on their terms. This was terrifying to Greeks since Greek girls were usually married by the age of eighteen and their guardianship was passed from a male relative to a husband.
Amazons sought relationships and lived with their partners. They were gentle and had kids to perpetuate their tribes. A story recounted by the Greek author, Philostratus, tells how the Amazons capture a ship and its sailors. They were planning to kill the sailors when one young Amazon felt pity and sexual desire for the youngest sailor. She pleaded for his freedom and the Amazons decided to release all the sailors. The sailors stayed and had close relationships with the women. They even taught the Amazons to sail, according to Mayor.
One-Breasted Warriors
The idea that a warrior woman removed one breast so that she could shoot arrows with ease is based on zero evidence, according to Mayor. All Amazons in Greek and Roman art are double-breasted too, suggesting even ancient artists refused to buy the notion.
No evidence supports the Greek myth that the Amazons abandoned or killed their baby boys. Archeologists found remains of warrior women buried with an infant or child, suggesting they did not want to be separated from them even in death.
Amazons of Persia
Iranian archeologists discovered over 100 ancient tombs belonging to warriors buried with their weapons near the Caspian Sea. A DNA test in 2004 revealed that at least one of the graves belonged to a woman. Further tests on the other remains were underway. According to Mayor, this region was associated with the Amazon Queen Thalestris, who met Alexander the Great during his campaign.
Women appeared in ancient Persian armies as soldiers and commanders. Roman authors noted the substantial number of women in military roles, particularly in the Sassanian army, according to Kaveh Farrokh, the author of The Armies of Ancient Persia: The Sassanian
The Persians recruited women for combat at critical times which suggests that they trained women just like men in the arts of War.
Apranik was a Sasanian military commander who commanded the army of Yazdegerd III against the Arab invasion of 651 AD.
And finally, do you remember Gordafarid, a symbol of courage and wisdom for Iranian women?
She is the heroine in The Shahnameh, or the Book of Kings, by the Persian poet Hakim Abul Qassem Ferdowsi around 1000 AD.
When Gordafarid learned that their leader had allowed himself to be taken, she found his behavior so shameful that her rosy cheeks became as black as pitch with rage. With not a moment’s delay, she dressed herself in a knight’s armor, gathered her hair beneath a Rumi helmet, and rode out from the fortress, a lion eager for battle. She roared at the enemy ranks, “Where are your heroes, your warriors, your tried and tested chieftains?
Gordafardid also encountered Sohrab, one of the male heroes of the Shahnameh, in combat. When she saw him, she turned in her saddle, drew a sharp blade from her waist, struck at his lance, and parted it in two.
