Amazon Warriors Did Indeed Fight and Die Like Men

National Geographic's Book Talk ^ | October 29, 2014 | Simon Worrall

[2ndDivisionVet]

Archaeology shows that these fierce women also smoked pot, got tattoos, killed—and loved—men.

The Amazons got a bum rap in antiquity. They wore trousers. They smoked pot, covered their skin with tattoos, rode horses, and fought as hard as the guys. Legends sprang up like weeds. They cut off their breasts to fire their bows better! They mutilated or killed their boy children! Modern (mostly male) scholars continued the confabulations. The Amazons were hard-core feminists. Man haters. Delinquent mothers. Lesbians.

Drawing on a wealth of textual, artistic, and archaeological evidence, Adrienne Mayor, author of The Amazons, dispels these myths and takes us inside the truly wild and wonderful world of these ancient warrior women.

Talking from her home in Palo Alto, California, she explains what Johnny Depp has in common with Amazons, why the Amazon spirit is breaking out all over pop culture, and who invented trousers.

We associate the word Amazon with digital book sales these days. Tell us about the real Amazons.

The real Amazons were long believed to be purely imaginary. They were the mythical warrior women who were the archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Every Greek hero or champion, from Hercules to Theseus and Achilles, had to prove his mettle by fighting a powerful warrior queen.

We know their names: Hippolyta, Antiope, Thessalia. But they were long thought to be just travelers' tales or products of the Greek storytelling imagination. A lot of scholars still argue that. But archaeology has now proven without a doubt that there really were women fitting the description that the Greeks gave us of Amazons and warrior women....

[WXRGina]

They were Democrats? Who knew? :-)

[cripplecreek]

They also appear to be completely mythical.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

"But they had guns so we had to burn them!"

[MUDDOG]

Modern archaeology vindicates Herodotus.

[PapaBear3625]

The early horses were rather small, and not strong enough for a large man to ride them. That's why you see pairs of them pulling chariots instead of being ridden in ancient pictures.

Women were light enough to ride the horses of the day without unduly burdening them. With bows, they could be cavalry archers.

[Tijeras_Slim]

she explains what Johnny Depp has in common with Amazons

The inability to grow a really good mustache?

[Dr. Ursus]

I hope they don’t find a plate with a picture of Lena Dunham on it!

[grumpygresh]

Reno, Barf! You can do better than that!

[Politicalkiddo]

“They mutilated or killed their boy children!”

So today’s FemiNazis are just weak Amazonian women?

[Wyrd bið ful aræd]

"But they were long thought to be just travelers' tales or products of the Greek storytelling imagination. A lot of scholars still argue that. But archaeology has now proven without a doubt that there really were women fitting the description that the Greeks gave us of Amazons and warrior women...."

NG says that archaeology has proven without a doubt! Well, there you go, that settles it. Just like global warming.

[Snickering Hound]

Well, not exactly...

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

What? What’s wrong with Reno? Isn’t he an amazon?

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

I think I watched that gif for 10 minutes straight....and they say hypnotism isn’t possible.

[MUDDOG]

But then what did they do with the boys?

They sent them to Cuba.

[Sherman Logan]

The great equalizer for those peoples was the domestication of horses and the invention of horse riding, followed by the perfection of the Scythian bow, which is smaller and very powerful. If you think about it, a woman on a horse with a bow, trained since childhood, can be just as fast and as deadly as a boy or man.

This is, of course, why all nomadic horse riding tribes developed women warriors.

The Scythian bow was indeed small and very powerful. But it required immense upper body strength, probably more than a bow used from the ground. And of course most women simply don't have this stremgth.

[marktwain]

This sounds like a case where a feminist takes some small, unexplined fact, and creates an entire mythos from it, to completely rewrite history.

Much like the book “when God was a Woman”.

[marktwain]

Read the article. She is not talking about the historical references in Greek mythology at all.

No tribes of warrior women. Just that among the Scythians, maybe one third as many women as men fought in warfare.

Even that number may be suspect, given the authors obvious desire that the Amazons be real.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

YEP! Isn't is amazing that when it comes to potential votes the Treason party encourages kids to walk over desert land and die of thirst but when it comes to upsetting a commie dictator they resort to armed deportations?

[marktwain]

When I wrote “Read the article” I mean it as a shortcut for “I read the article”, but it reads as a command to “Read the article.”

Not the way I meant it at all!