"Not a single girl gets married until she kills the enemy," wrote Herodotus, traveling through the ancient world, in the 5th century BC, about the women warriors of the mysterious people of the Savromats. The ancient writer said that the Scythians (who ruled the Great Steppe in the VIII-IV century BC) called these warriors "oirpat" - "male killers", if translated into Hellenic (ancient Greek) language. Such a balm for the hearts and souls of desperate feminists is complemented by the reports of other storytellers of the ancient world, mentioning the Amazons of the Northern Black Sea region.
Amazonomachy is a favorite subject for painting antique vases. In the photo - the image of the warrior on the kilik of Master Efronia:
“After an interregnum once happened in Scythia, women who were distinguished by their strength reigned in it. Among these peoples, women, like men, are accustomed to war and are in no way inferior to them in courage; therefore, many great feats were performed by glorious women, not only in Scythia, but also in the neighboring lands,”writes Diodorus of Siculus.
Even the philosopher Plato assured that he not only heard, but also knew about the women warriors living around Meotida (the ancient name of the Sea of Azov).
But, as Cervantes said in Don Quixote, "Plato is my friend, but truth is dearer!" On the one hand, legends of female warriors are found in many cultural traditions. Suffice it to recall Nastasya Korolevichna from Russian epics, who shows a master class in archery at her own wedding. At the same time, we find it difficult to believe in the stories of ancient authors about the Amazons burning their right breast in order to enhance their combat abilities. Moreover, the ancient writers, as a rule, compiled their notes according to rumors transmitted through a "broken phone".
Where is fiction in these stories, and where is the reflection of reality? And how to separate one from the other? Archeology comes to the rescue, which extracts grains of information from ancient artifacts. Recently, scientists from the Transnistrian State University excavated a mound in the Slobodzeya region, which can tell something about the mighty warriors of antiquity.
The mound of the steppe pyramid was completely plowed up, the mound did not stand out at all on the relief, says Vitaly Sinika, senior researcher at the Archeology Research Laboratory, candidate of historical sciences. However, after the researchers removed the top layer of soil, they found a moat and four spots that were different in color from the yellow clay of the mainland.
Promotional video:
Digging up the spots one by one, archaeologists discovered the tomb of a child, and then the tomb of a woman with fragments of a bronze mirror.
In the center of the mound, scientists stumbled upon a robbed pair burial. The robbers carried away every last item, and severely damaged the bones of the buried. Nevertheless, experts determined from the surviving remains that the tomb was built for two, most likely a man and a woman.
The most interesting tomb of the mound was located next to it. At first, bones from the sacrificial food and a burnt stone slab appeared from under the soft fibers of the brush. During the clearing of the skeleton in the area of the right shoulder blade, a green patina of a bronze mirror was discovered. They put him behind the back of the deceased. The researchers do not doubt that it was a woman, because for the entire time of excavations, mirrors in the tombs of men have not been reliably recorded.
“There are objects such as stucco spinning wheels, fragments of bone or wooden spindles, bronze mirrors, paired earrings, which always come from female burials. There are no exceptions,”explained Vitaly Sinika.
And suddenly, next to the bones of his right hand, archaeologists find a quiver set of bronze arrowheads. Moreover, they were clearly placed in the tomb not as amulets, but precisely as an item of weapons, as is often found in the tombs of the Scythians.
What could a weapon symbolize in a funeral ritual? So far, this is a mystery over which more than one generation of researchers is struggling. But in our case, the quiver set can mean only one thing - before us is the tomb of a Scythian warrior!
"Among these peoples, women, like men, are accustomed to war and are in no way inferior to them in courage," - immediately recall the words of Diodorus Siculus, talking about the gender characteristics of the Scythian society.
However, the tombs of female warriors are not found very often in the Northern Black Sea region. On the territory of Transnistria, for example, for more than a hundred years of archaeological excavations, only about ten such tombs have been found. However, one should not forget that only a small percentage of all ancient monuments have been investigated. So it's too early to draw conclusions.
For example, ten years ago, in the catacomb of the already mentioned Scythian necropolis of the 3rd - 2nd centuries BC, the bones of a woman with a spear (!) Were found. Moreover, according to the conclusion of anthropologists, her age at the time of death did not exceed 20 years (!!!).
Entrance to the catacomb "woman with a spear":
Tomb interior:
Tomb interior:
Corroded fragments of an iron spearhead:
“Many great feats were accomplished by glorious women, not only in Scythia, but also in neighboring lands,” - again I want to quote Diodorus of Siculus.
So archeology leads us to some interesting conclusions. First, female warriors are not just legends and myths of Ancient Greece, but a very real fact. Secondly, they lived, including on the territory of Transnistria.
The warrior as presented by the artist-reenactor Evgeniy Kray:
No less interesting is the history of the excavated burial mound, the time of the appearance of which archaeologists associate with the second half of the 4th century BC. At first, two tombs were built - for the couple and the "battle lady". Archaeologists are sure that they appeared at the same time. Some time later, in the same mound, a tomb was built for another woman. And a little later, a child was buried here, whose gender has not yet been determined. At the same time, the researchers note a slight difference in time between all burials.
It is quite possible that we are talking about a family mound - the buried, apparently, were linked by blood or blood kinship. Now specialists from the University of Anthropology named after Adam Mitskevich (Poland), with whom Pridnestrovian archaeologists have been cooperating for several years.
Alexander Koretsky