The image of the Amazons - female warriors who, in the art of wielding weapons, will give odds to any warrior, has worried men for more than a thousand years. Who was not seen under this myth: the maenads of Dionysus, the Scythian warriors and even the Indian women of South America.
Host of the vine
The myth of the Amazons is considered very ancient - it is attributed to the lost Minoan civilization from the island of Crete, that is, by the end of III-II BC, associated with the cult of the Great Goddess and matriarchy. As evidence, they cite the cult of the goddess Artemis, a virgin huntress who was considered the patroness of the Amazons, as well as with her constant companion, according to some versions, her male hypostasis, Dionysus.
The ancient admirers of Dionysus are often associated with the Amazons. The female army of the ancient Greek god of winemaking and madness really inspired terror in contemporaries. Half-naked, in animal skins and with grape leaves maenads, which literally translates as “mad”, maenads and, subsequently, Bacchantes, rushed around the neighborhood, frightening the population and turning into a temporary natural disaster. Sources describe how they, in a semi-conscious state, arranged orgies, danced with snakes, snatched burning logs from a fire and performed ritual animal sacrifices.
However, business was not always limited to our smaller brothers. There is a well-known myth about Orpheus, who was torn to pieces by the Maenads, either because he witnessed their mysteries, or because, chanting the gods, he missed Dionysus. His fate was shared by the king of Perfey, who pursued the maenads in the forests in order to return his mother, intoxicated by Dionysus.
Could the Maenads have become the prototype of the Amazons by ancient authors? Well, this was quite possible, given that the social cause of the bacchanals is considered to be the escape of a woman from everyday worries and the foundations of a patriarchal society. At least for a while. All other days of the year, a woman was to be quiet, exemplary and law-abiding. In the days of the glorification of Dionysus, she could throw off all prohibitions, leaving behind her home, family, duties, in order to dance to exhaustion and praise her God, without fear of reprisal for her voluntary actions.
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Amazons of Central Asia
And nevertheless, the descriptions of the orgy resembles the subsequent picture of the medieval coven of witches somewhere on a bald mountain rather than the stately female warriors, the daughters of Ares, terrifying and so admiring the Hellenes. Even Hercules, who by cunning took possession of the belt of the queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta, put this feat on a par with the victory over the Nemean lion and the Lernaean hydra.
And if we go back to the ancient Greek stories about the Amazons, the ancient authors placed their location somewhere on the periphery of their ecumene, that is, on the coast of the Black Sea and the Azov Sea. Most likely, this may be due to the clash of the Greeks with other cultures, where the features of matriarchy are still preserved. Compared to a Greek woman who, in the classical period, most of the time timidly sat in the female half of the house - the gynequee, and was obliged to obey her patron without question, freedom-loving savages could seem fantastic creatures to the Hellenes, on a par with sirens, one-eyed Arimasp or griffins.
At the distant "Amazon"
As new lands were discovered and the boundaries of the human ecumene expanded, the legendary country of beautiful warriors moved further and further to the outskirts of the map. At first, their homeland was the Black Sea region, then India, in medieval times - central and South Africa, as well as the unexplored islands of the Indian Ocean. With the discovery of the New World, fans of the ancient myth have another hope.
So, the Spanish officials, Juana de San Martina and Antonio de Lebrija, who took part in the campaign of the conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada on the territory of modern Colombia, in 1539 told about one people of women: "living by themselves without men living with them." According to the records of travelers, the American Amazons conceived children from the slaves they bought, and if a boy was born, they sent him back to his father, who also did not stay among them, if the girl, diligently raised her.
In the report of another expedition, under the command of the conquistador Francisco Orillana, the discoverer of the Amazon River, a certain monk Gaspard de Carvajal mentioned his heroic battle with the Amazons. True, there were skeptics in his time. The Spanish author of the "History of the Indies" Francisco López de Gomara, in response to all the impressive stories of travelers, noted that: “And others, besides Orillana, have told the same fable about the Amazons since the time when India was discovered, but such a thing never happened. is seen and will never be seen. Because of this deception, some are already writing and saying "river of the Amazons," and many parties are going to go there. " Thus, the dream of a legendary tribe gave a new name to the world's largest river.
Beyond the Tanais River
Are the Amazon tribes just the fantasy of Greek authors? In our time, when "all the islands have been open for a long time," the legendary warriors are left to look for unless only in the past. In this case, let's return to the origins, or rather to the shores of the Black Sea and Meotida (Azov region), where the Tanais river flows, today known as the Don. Herodotus said that the Amazons came to this region from Asia Minor, where they were captured by the Greeks in the battle on the river Fermodonte.
However, the women who were loaded onto ships attacked the Greeks on the high seas and hijacked the ships. True, in the naval business, apparently, they were inferior to their invaders - not knowing how to control ships and navigate the sea, they could not return home. Surrendering to the wind, they moored to the Azov Sea, where they captured a herd of horses and began to plunder the Scythian land.
Almost 400 years after Herodotus, the Roman historian Pompey Trogus, in the 1st century BC, reported that the Amazons were the wives of the Scythians who left the Black Sea lands for Asia Minor to the Fermodont River. There all the Scythian men were killed, and the women took up arms, successfully defending their lands from enemies.
Perhaps it was the Scythian and Sarmatian women, who often had to fight hand in hand with men, who became the prototype for the spread of the myth of the Amazons. In the end, the Greeks had to constantly deal with both.
The Scythian burial mounds of southern Russia, which archaeologists have been systematically excavating since the 19th century, confirm that many of the works of Herodotus and other ancient authors are true. Many graves of armed women are found there. On their remains, traces of combat injuries are often found - damage to the skull, collarbones and limb bones from punches with stabbing and chopping weapons. Sometimes even arrowheads stuck in the bones. Many have a change in the phalanges on two fingers of the right hand, which indicates constant archery.
In the Middle Ages, the Scythian Amazons were obviously replaced by the Khazar. About 30% of female Khazar burials of all ages were accompanied by weapons, mainly hatchets. The remains of some of the young female warriors were found with a full complement of weapons: bows and arrows, knives and even sabers. By the way, such "Amazons" were buried separately from men, in graves specially built for them, while ordinary women, who were accompanied to another world by mirrors and jewelry, were often placed in a pair burial.