In Greek legends, the Amazons were feared and formidable women warriors who lived on the edge of the known world. Hercules had to obtain the magic girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte in one of his 12 labours, and Achilles killed another queen, Penthesilea, only to fall in love with her as her beautiful face emerged from her helmet.
These horseback-riding, bow-wielding nomads, who fought and hunted just like men, have long been shrouded in myth, but archaeologists are discovering increasing evidence that they really did exist.
Excavations of graves within a bronze age necropolis in Nakhchivan in Azerbaijan revealed that women had been buried with weapons such as razor-sharp arrowheads, a bronze dagger and a mace, as well as jewellery.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
In Greek legends, the Amazons were feared and formidable women warriors who lived on the edge of the known world.
These horseback-riding, bow-wielding nomads, who fought and hunted just like men, have long been shrouded in myth, but archaeologists are discovering increasing evidence that they really did exist.
Historian Bettany Hughes told the Observer: “It shows that there’s truth behind the myths and legends of ancient Greece.”
The finds will be revealed in a new Channel 4 series in April, Bettany Hughes’ Treasures of the World – Azerbaijan: Silk Roads and the Caucasus.
She visits the mountain village of Khinalig in the Greater Caucasus, the highest inhabited place in Europe.
There has been a settlement there since the bronze age, and some of its 2,000 residents tell her that, in ancient times, their women disguised themselves as men with scarves – stories handed down through their generations.
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