The History of the Amazons, where reality is more astounding than myth!
By Pau Brasi
Controversial facts about Amazons reluctantly being acknowledged as truth in academia


More and more evidence has now shown that far from being mythological, Amazons
actually did exist. A lot of confusion stems from differing accounts of where
their nation and even their name originated from, with geography locating them
everywhere from the black sea to Libya. Origins of the word are sited as being
from the Iranian 'ha-mazan' or the Berber 'amazigh' meaning warrior. For a
while it was thought it comes from the Greek 'a-mazos' literally without
breast, because of the story that Amazons had their left breast burnt out.
This is now widely discredited, one, because ancient artwork of Amazons
clearly show them with 2 breasts and, even more convincingly, two, cauterising
the breast would result in sever internal haemorrhaging leading to death.
Herodotus and the Scythians called them 'Androktones' and 'Oiorpata' literally
meaning 'man killers'. However, it appears now that separate, different Amazon
civilisations existed. For simplicity this article will discuss the history of
the Amazons who originated on the north Aegean island of Lemnos.

Lemnos, known by the ancient Greeks as Gynaikokratumene, literally 'reigned by
women' , is rich with archeological evidence of a matriarchal society going
back to Neolithic times. Vulva shaped rock monuments can be found all over the
island e.g. on the mountain Kakavos and at Kavirio, venerating the power of
women.

The tribal pagan Amazons of Lemnos were described as being formidable
warriors. A girl was trained in combat from birth in a method very similar to
that of the Spartans. I refer the reader to my previous article describing how
strong women can become when following the correct training regime. The
physical prowess of these Amazons when they reached adulthood would have been
phenomenal! (I will discuss more on the strength of the Amazons towards the
end of the writing).

When the Greek empire turned its attention to Lemnos and its inhabitants they
invaded with an aim to capture and enslave its women. Whilst the invasion was
successful, it was achieved only using overwhelming numbers of soldiers at
great loss. The Amazons slew the Greeks in their hundreds before outnumbered
the tribe was finally captured.

The Amazons were bound and put on board 3 ships with an eye on taking them to
Greece as slaves. (Herodotus sights this event as taking place on nearby
Thermodon, but it is accepted now this was in fact the fate of the Lemnos
Amazons)

Unfortunately for the Greeks, even though the bindings they used would of have
been sufficient to restrain a man, the bonds proved to be a ridiculously
simple thing for an Amazon to break. Once free with the numbers of Greek
soldiers guarding them on the ships were far more even, the unarmed Amazons
quickly, easily and brutally killed their former captors using just their bare
hands.

At drift at sea, with no knowledge of sailing, the Amazons were eventually
washed up on the shores of the Sea of Azov, and set about pillaging the local
Scythians.

The Scythians quickly amassed their army to deal with the fearsome raiders.
However using hit and run tactics the outnumbered Amazons made it nigh on
impossible for the Scythians to engage in open warfare and inflicted
humiliating defeat after defeat on the getting increasingly desperate men.
They had no option but to parley for peace. Herodotus claims this was due to
some male chivalry on the Scythians part when they discovered their
adversaries were women. This is extremely unlikely and has now been dismissed
as fabrication. The fact of the matter was that a handful of shipwrecked women
were decimating their mighty army!

But how to communicate? The Scythians couldn't get close to the Amazons
without a great number of them being slain before the Amazons withdrew. And
even if they were able to, neither group could understand the others language.
The Scythians developed a plan whereby they would send squads to set up camp
near the Amazons and observe. When the Amazons pursued them they would retreat
and when safe try to return to point closer than the one before. This truly
was a suicidal game of playing with fire! The first few squads to try this
were eventually caught and ruthlessly slain.

However the Scythians persevered and the Amazons slowly warmed to the bravery
of the soldiers, not in their running away but in how near they would allow
themselves to get to certain death. So finally when the latest squad of men
were captured, the males were taken as captives and mates. The Amazons learnt
the Scythians language and the captive mates negotiated for peace.

The men pleaded for the Amazons to join their male civilisation, but the
Amazons would have none of it, why should they? The Scythians had no choice
but to capitulate to a force they could not beat. The Scythians surrendered a
large piece of their land to the Amazons in return for peace.

The Amazons allowed the men they had captured to return to their kinsfolk if
they so wished under the provision that would 'forever more be their husbands
to do with as they wished'. This is in all likelihood where the myth about
Amazons leading 'breeding' raids on the Gargareans stems from.

Over time the new Amazon nation flourished and unfortunately for the Scythians
and other neighbouring countries their thoughts turned to conquest. A small
island tribe of warrior women that the Greeks through their own tyranny had
brought into contact with 'civilisation' became in a relatively short time the
most fearsome, powerful army the ancient world had ever seen at that point.
They demonstrated this by destroying the armies of all other nations in their
path. At its peak, the Amazon Empire had captured Armenia, Syria, and all of
Asia Minor. Stories of the brutality of the Amazons on the people of the lands
they conquered are rife, but must be taken into context they weren't doing
anything worse or different than any other of the ancient worlds powers would
do to the inhabitants of lands they conquered.

And eventually destiny brought the Amazons back face to face with the Greeks.
The Amazon invasion of Greece hit like a thunderbolt. The Greek army suffered
defeat after defeat at the hands of the warrior women who cut a swathe through
Greece like a hot knife through butter like they had through the lands of all
the other male dominated societies who fell before them. Until finally the
Amazons reached the gates of Athens itself, Athens the Greek capital, the
birthplace of today's western civilization! The battle lines were drawn!

At the start of the battle, the Greeks had rallied almost everything they had
to try and defeat the female invader. On their side the Greeks were
technologically more advanced than the Amazons and even though a lot of their
armies had been massacred in the earlier battles in their war against the
Amazons they still managed to rally a force that outnumbered the Amazons 30 to
1. But the Amazons were without doubt the strongest warriors, one on one a
Greek soldier had no chance against an Amazon for sure, 30 to 1? It might be
possible. The Amazon battle of Athens is possibly the bloodiest in ancient
Greek history and is said to of lasted a month, and the answer to the question
of whether 1 Amazon could take out 30 Greek soldiers is pretty much yes! By 2
weeks into the battle both sides had taken enormous casualties but the Amazons
had the upper hand, the better armed and numbered Greeks had been made to fall
back by the stronger, superior Amazon warriors with Plutarch stating the
Amazons had even taken the city and set up camp in its walls itself! But the
turning point arrived with the arrival of Greek reinforcements and mercenaries
who appeared from behind the Amazons lines. However, it still took them
another 2 weeks to defeat the Amazons! The battle is commemorated in frescos
in the Parthenon.

The historically importance of this battle cannot be overstated. The outcome
this relatively unknown war that occurred between the Greeks and Amazons is a
defining point in the history of modern civilization, victory of the Amazons
would have changed the course of history, victory for the Amazons would of
certainly meant the modern world we live in today would not be a patriarchal
society, but a matriarchy or possibly even a gynarchy instead!

I mentioned the technical superiority of the Greeks. In the onset of the
Bronze Age, military weapons and equipment developed at a fast rate. The myth
of Achilles' invulnerability is thought to originate in the new bronze armour
that the Greeks had developed, which pretty much covered the entire human body
leaving only the calf area on the back of the leg exposed-hence the origin of
the Achilles heel! In fact even the biased Greek myths in which their
mightiest heroes slay an Amazon champion in combat give ground to the fact
that in a fair fight even their toughest man could not beat an Amazon '
Achilles when he came face to face against Penthasilea in combat was stuck in
the throat, chest and head before he could slay her. Heracles when he faced
the Amazon Aella in combat he was wearing the skin of the Nimean lion, which
made him invulnerable. In the story he is struck several times by blows that
for sure would have killed him if it were not for the skin before he could
finally dispatch Aella.

The battle of Athens was the beginning of the end for the Amazons. Their
empire went into swift decline and they soon vanished entirely. But even
though for many years their very existence was speculated on, they still had a
pronounced influence on many of the cultures their empire had touched. Amazon
descendants were said to reside among the Germanic Goth tribes and even to
have reached the Celts, where many legends tell that their greatest warriors
were trained by women warriors whose skills far surpassed that of the heroes
they taught.

Tombs now known to be that of Amazons have discovered on the Russia/Kazakhstan
border. Seven tombs were found each containing the body of a woman warrior of
various ages, the youngest being just 13! Each Amazon had been buried with a
variety of bronze weapons such as swords, axes, arrowheads. A couple of the
women's bones had injuries suggesting that even if they had not died in
battle, they had definitely been in some! One of women is thought to be some
kind of Amazon nobility, along with her weapons she was also not only buried
with several ornate pieces of jewelry, but a body of a man was found at her
feet! Servant? Slave? Spouse? His relationship with the Amazon is still not
clear. But perhaps the most remarkable thing about the women is that when they
first found the skeletons and looked at the marks on the leg and arm bones
where the muscle attachments used to be, they initially thought they were
looking at the remains of very strong men, it was only when they examined the
pelvis' and heads they realised they were looking at the bones of very strong
women, and I mean very strong! Using forensic archeology of the muscle
attachments they came to the conclusion that even the 13 year old had strength
far in excess of the average person of that age and this age. Remember what I
said at the start about the discussing the strength of Amazons? Estimation of
the physical attributes and comparison with that of other male warrior remains
from all differing era's all over the world show that these women were perhaps
the strongest, most powerful warriors the planet has ever seen!

And who knows, with a small but ever growing band of modern Amazons bucking
the trend that society dictates women should not be strong, perhaps one day
the Amazon nation will rise again!