Everyone has heard of the legendary Amazons, a nation of fearsome female nomadic warriors who, according to legend, lived in the steppes north of the Black Sea. Have you ever wondered, though, if the legend of the Amazons might have some historical basis? Well, if you have, you are in luck, because there really just might be a grain of truth behind this famous legend.
An introduction to the Amazons of legend
When you hear the word “Amazon,” chances are you probably think of armies of exclusively female warriors living in isolation in some far-off land, probably looking something like the characters from the 2017 movie Wonder Woman:
This is not too far off from how the Amazons are actually described in ancient Greek texts. According to ancient Greek historical writers like Herodotos of Halikarnassos (lived c. 484 – c. 425 BC) and Strabon of Amaseia (lived c. 64 or 63 BC – c. 24 AD), the Amazons were a tribe of fierce warrior women who traditionally were said to have lived in the steppes north of the Black Sea in what is now the modern country of Ukraine, although some accounts place them in what is now northern Turkey.
These writers tell all sorts of stories about the Amazons and their way of life. Supposedly, the Amazons were all female. According to Strabon, they reproduced by interbreeding with the Gargarians, a neighboring tribe, for two months in spring; then, when they gave birth, they gave the male infants back to the Gargarians and kept the female infants for themselves. The Amazon girls were supposedly trained from birth to be fierce warriors.
Just to give you an impression of how devoted the Greeks thought these Amazon women were to warfare, according to classical Greek sources, the Amazons received their name because they were said to cut off their own right breasts so they would not get in the way when they were practicing archery. The Amazons were said to have been skilled in all the arts of war, but, as a nomadic people of the steppe, they were especially talented at archery and horseback-riding, much like the Mongols of later times.
ABOVE: Greek red-figure vase painting dating to c. 400 BC or thereabouts depicting Greek male warriors fighting Amazonian women
No, the Amazons of legend did not exist historically.
Unfortunately for all of you who had your hopes up that the movie Wonder Woman would turn out to be a nonfiction documentary, the Amazons as they are described in ancient Greek historical sources never really existed; they are merely products of the ancient Greek imagination.
Indeed, if we look at everything the Greeks tell us about the Amazons, most of it is just a direct reversal of what ancient Greek society was actually like. The ardently patriarchal ancient Greeks firmly believed that fighting was an exclusively male domain, so, to them, the idea of an entire nation of female warriors was just backwards—a direct inversion of the natural order.
ABOVE: Tondo from an Attic red-figure kylix dating to c. 510 – c. 500 BC showing an Amazon dressed in full battle armor
In fact, the idea of female warriors seemed so utterly backwards and wrong that the Euhemeristic Greek writer Palaiphatos claimed in his treatise On Incredible Tales that the Amazons were really just clean-shaven men wearing long clothes that reached their feet whom some people mistook for women. On account of this, it seems that, when the ancient Greeks were trying to decide what Amazon society was like, they seem to have just thought, “What would be the exact opposite of everything that is normal and natural?”
The female Sauromatian warriors who helped inspire the Amazons
Surprisingly, however, in spite of this tendency, there is more than just a grain of truth behind the legend of the Amazons. There were, in fact, real female Scythian and Sauromatian warriors who really did live in the lands north of the Black Sea between the sixth century BC and the second century AD.
We know this because archaeologists since the late nineteenth century have excavated dozens upon dozens of graves of these warriors. Indeed, the first archaeologists to excavate the region in the late nineteenth century were astonished to discover grave shafts filled with rich grave goods and weapons exactly as one would expect from a male chieftain—yet these graves belonged to women!
ABOVE: Map showing the lands of Scythia and Sarmatia (Sauromatia) in Roman times, by which time there were still female warriors living among them
The fact that there were real female warriors in the region where the Greeks said the Amazons lived might lead some people to declare that these Sauromatian women were the “real Amazons.” Unfortunately, these “Amazon warriors” do not line up very well with what the Greeks said about the Amazons. One of the most obvious discrepancies is that, while the Amazons were supposedly all female, the majority of the warrior graves found in the steppes of Ukraine actually belong to men.
Even among the Sauromatians, who have the highest ratio of burials of female warriors relative to male warriors, only about one fifth of the warrior burials belong to women. That is still astonishing, because it means a very high percentage of Sauromatian warriors were indeed women, but it means that, even in supposed “Amazon country,” male warriors still outnumbered female warriors four to one.
ABOVE: Attic black-figure amphora dating to c. 530 – c. 520 BC depicting the hero Herakles fighting an Amazon
Instead of seeing the Sauromatian warrior women as the “real Amazons” it is more accurate to regard them as a possible inspiration for the Greek myth of the Amazons. We know that the ancient Greeks were more than well-acquainted with the fact that Sauromatian women often fought in battle alongside their men, since this fact is noted frequently by Greek historians, including Herodotos, who explains the high number of female Sauromatian warriors as an indication that the Sauromatians were descended from the Amazons of old.
So, no, the Amazons did not really exist as they are described in ancient Greek historical sources, but there really were female warriors in the steppes of Ukraine between the sixth century BC and the second century AD. Based on the available evidence, it seems likely that accounts of these female warriors may have contributed to the development of the legend of the fearsome Amazons.
ABOVE: Detail from an Attic red-figure lekythos dating to around c. 420 BC depicting Amazons fighting
