Who were the Amazons?
- They were fierce women warriors known for fighting from horseback and their prowess with the bow and sword.
- Amazons were exclusively women, living independently without men at a time in ancient history when women were chattels of men.
- The Amazons didn’t live in the towns/cities but in closely guarded hidden cities.
- If no men, then how did they reproduce? According to several authors of the time, the Amazon women met in secret places with a select tribe of men or soldiers for two months every spring. Then the Amazon women returned to their own cities. If female infants resulted from those unions, the Amazons kept them. If male infants were born, the Amazon returned the infants to their fathers.
But were the Amazon women real or mythical? Were they like Wonder Woman of DC Comics and Warner Brother’s film with superpowers? That would certainly suggest they were fictional characters. But here are the facts:
- The notable ancient Greek historians Metrodorus, Herodotus, and Strabo (5th, 4th, and 1st centuries B.C.) documented the presence of bands of women warriors engaging in battle in ancient Thrace, the Aegean Islands, Asia Minor (the modern-day countries of Greece, Macedonia, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Albania), as well as modern-day Egypt, Russia, and Ukraine.
- Archaeologists have found burial grounds (in Russia and Ukraine, dating back over two thousand years) of women buried with shields, bows, arrows, and daggers, suggesting a band of women who engaged in warfare.
- Modern-day Turkey’s Amazon Village Museum provides an educational glimpse of the ancient band of warrior women.
So, no magic Wonder Woman rope that compels the truth or arm guards that repel bullets (which didn’t exist at the time), but bands of formidable women warriors in ancient times—women of strength, courage, and ability—the forbearers of today’s women serving in our armed forces.
