The Amazons

A web page of
Eckard Wolff-Postler

What are Amazons?

"Amazons" the ancient Greek called a people of warlike women they encountered as they expanded their influence into Asia Minor, which we call Turkey today.


Talking today about "Amazons" connects quite a lot of different notions to this term.

And how various are the concepts described by this name!

Horsewomen and markswomen are called amazones.
The same name has been given to a certain breed of parakeets and perhaps even some rather dubious offers may be found when searching for this word.

By the way: The river Amazonas in South America was given its name for the fact, that the conquistadores on its bank encountered indian tribes, whose women actively assisted their men in the defense of their territory.



But we will confine ourselves to the search for traces the real Amazons have left behind.

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Whence comes the name "Amazons", after all?

Well, that is not so quite certain.

In the old Persian language Sanskrit there seems to have existed an appellation "uma soona", which corresponds approximately to the notion of "Children of Uma", where "Uma" is the name of a moon(?) goddess. Also an old Armenian word is likely to have existed, sounding similar and meaning "Moon-woman".

On some greek vases the Amazons are depicted carrying moon shaped bucklers and also the Greek assigned to them Arthemis, their goddess of hunt and moon. Onomatopoeic they may have mimicked the name of this strange people "uma soona" as "amazon".
Martin-von-Wagner-Museum der Universität Würzburg Photo: K. Öhrlein



Since in ancient Greek language this approximately corresponds to "without breast", they may have found this extremely witty. And here we may have also a possible explanation for the (not at all proven) legend, the Amazon warrioresses were in the habit to amputate one breast.

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What space of time we have to alot to the Amazons?

About a millennium is the time we may safely assume for the existence of the Amazons. At least this is the span of time they appear in the tales of old.

The Troian war is supposed to have taken place about 1200 b.Chr. Homer reports in his "Iliad" of the Amazon princess Penthesilea, who found her death in this war.

The next encounter the Greek had with the Amazons circa the year 700 b.Chr. This time the woman warriors advanced to Athens and battled Theseus, who had abducted Anthiope, in the middle of his own city.

Alexander the Great had brought Asia Minor under his dominance with the battle of Issos (333 b.Chr.), when he met Thalestris, the queen of Amazons.
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Where can we assume the Amazons to have lived?

Here we are forced to rely on the evidence provided by historical sources, for there are no other explicit historic findings. Regrettably many of the works of antique authors have perished.

As the town of the Amazons a city Themiscyra on the river Thermodon is named. We may assume both to lie in northern Anatolia, on the southeastern coast of the Black Sea.

Thus Lysias says, they lived "on the river Thermodon, flowing into the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea)."
But Pausanias reports, the Amazons were living "in the area of the caucasian mountains extending down to the Hyrcanian Sea (the Caspian Sea)".
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How did the Amazons live?

Again we have to rely on the ancient historians.

The first hint we find at Lysias. He reports:



"In olden times the Amazons lived, doughters of Ares, near the river Thermodon flowing into the Pontus Euxinus (the Black Sea). They alone of all peoples around were armoured with iron and they were the first to ride on horseback, by which they took their ignorant enemies by surprise and either caught fugitives or escaped their pursuers. For their courage they were esteemed rather like men than for their womanly gender. So much they seemed to exceed men in their fighting spirit, that their nature did not put them to disadvantage."
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A little more explicitly Strabo is reporting:

"Also the Amazons, it is said, live in the mountains of Albania. (Not to be mistaken for the modern state of Albania!). Theophanes, who took part in Pompeius' campaign and reached the country of the Albanians, says that the Geles and the Leges, scythian peoples, live in between the Amazons and the Albanians. And that there the river Mermadalis is running in the midst between these peoples and the Amazons. Others, however, among them Metrodorus the Sceptic and Hypsicrates, who also is not inexperienced in said regions, say that the Amazons live near the border to the Gagarians in the northern promontories of the Caucasus, called "Ceraunian mountains"."
"The Amazons spend their time remotely and busy themselves plowing and sowing, planting, pasturing their herdes and especially breeding horses. The more courageous among them engage in hunting on horseback and exercise warlike arts."

"All of them had as children their right breast singed so they were able to put their right arm to every which use easier, especially to throw the javelin. They also make use of the bow, the axe, and a light buckler and they prepare helmets, clothing, and waistbelts from animal skin. In spring they are celebrating two special months, when they climb into the nearby mountains which separate them from the Gagarians. After an old custom the Gagarians go there too, sacrifice together with the Amazons and unite with them to procreate children. Stealthily they are doing so and in the dark, every Gagarian with every Amazon to their discretion. After they are pregnant, they return. The female children which are born to the Amazons they keep, but the boys are given to the Gagarians to raise and everyone receiving a child keeps it as a born son, for the uncertainty of its origin."