Who Were the Amazons?
“. Research into the Amazons is extremely limited and at times contradictory. There are numerous accounts of the origins of the Amazons, most concurring that the black sea region was their original settlement. To what extent the Amazons settled into the Black Sea region has not been fully ascertained. Some sources say they reached as far south as Libya, some to the Anatolia peninsula, others as far west as the Mongolian region of Eurasia. These accounts are further conflicted by the later Greek accounts of the Amazons. According to the Greek accounts, when the Greeks themselves began to settle into the area of the black sea, they found no Amazons. As a result and to explain this discrepancy, the myth of Hercules and Hippolyte was created to explain their disappearance. According to the myth, Hercules led an expedition through the Amazon land to obtain the girdle of Queen Hippolyte (the queen of the Amazons), during this time he managed to expel and conquer all the Amazons in the distri
The Amazons were a legendary race of warrior women in Greek mythology. They feature frequently in Greek and Roman accounts of warfare, but it is unknown whether they were purely legendary or based on a real group of female warriors. The Amazons of myth were an exclusively female society. According to Greek myth, the Amazons had an independent kingdom located in modern-day Turkey. Different accounts place the Amazons in varying locations, typically at the borders of the known world. In some versions, men were not allowed to live in Amazon territory or to mate with Amazons. Annually, the Amazons would mate with the members of a neighboring all-male tribe, the Gargareans, in order to maintain their population. Male babies would be abandoned, killed, or sent to live with the Gargareans. Amazons hold a number of important places in Greek myth. The most well known story is of the Attic War between the Athenians and the Amazons, begun when Heracles stole the magic girdle belonging to the Amaz
Despite the fact that Strabo’s story is, obviously, part fantasy, part legend, it may offer some basis for fact. For example, it states that there were two neighboring tribes in Caucasian Albania: the Amazons and Gagarians. Of course, it is hard to believe that Amazons consisted only of women. More than likely, it was a tribe with strong traces of matriarchy, where women served as warriors and chiefs of tribes. So the Amazons and Gagarians may have been people of different cultures and traditions and, perhaps, with different languages and racial peculiarities. Plutarch’s Amazons Left: From Miniatures of Nizami’s Poetry (Baku, Yazichi 1983). In 66 BC, the Roman legions marched on the Caucasus, hoping to be able to easily overtake and conquer this mountainous region. The Roman army was headed by the distinguished General Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, 106-47 BC). Orois, the king of the Caucasian Albania, made a fearless attack on the Roman legions. The Albanian army numbering about 40,0
Archaeological discoveries in the early 2000’s indicate that the Amazons may not have been as mythological as previously thought. Graves of warriors have been discovered, with swords, daggers, javelins, bows, and arrows, and all of the skeletons found have been female. The graves were discovered near the Black Sea, close to where the Greek historian Herodotus placed the Amazons, but they date to the Fifth Century AD, about a thousand years after Herodotus. It is not known if these female warriors were the legendary Amazons or not.
