Re: [tied] Re: AMAZONS: legend or history?

But how the Primitive Greeks could know people from Central Europe or
Sarmatia. I think the later geographical knowledge was been mixed with a
pre-extant legend. Remember that in Modern Age Amazons were transferred to
South America, as Cyclopes and other mythical creatures. I think that an
older legend about "women from Sea" was mixed with the discovery of true
tribes with female warriors.
Coincidentally or not, the Brazilian Amerinds from Amazonia have many
interesting legends about warrior women.

Joao SL
Rio

----- Original Message -----
From: John Croft <jdcroft@...>
To: <cybalist@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 6:58 AM
Subject: [tied] Re: AMAZONS: legend or history?


> João wrote:
> > What would be the origin of the Amazons, the warrior women of Greek
> legends? Were they some historical people? Or just a myth?
> >
> > I don't deny the opinion that Sarmatian women were very active as
> warriors, but I think the Amazo:nes had some mythic substratum: a
> host of fierce marine women.
> >
> > 1) AMAZO:NES (akin to Armenian Amis-Zon "Moon Woman" ?)
> > They've ever apperead in Greek myths as adversaries of heroes,
> Theseus, Herakles and Bellerophontes. Myrina (Bathyaia)'s tomb is
> cited at Iliad. Diodorus Siculus mentioned euhemerist tales envolving
> Lybian Amazons, Atlants and Gorgons.
> >
> > 2) GEOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES
> > There were two different areas, perhaps reflecting two distinct
> traditions. The "Southern Tradition", with Amazons coming from Egypt,
> Libya, or even Hesperides. The "Northern Tradition", with Amazons
> coming from Asia, Thracia or Scythia. The S-Tradition may have
> connections with female priests of Neith, that were depicted as
> warriors. The N-Tradition may have influences from Sarmatian warrior
> women. Maybe these traditions could have influenced the Amazon
> legends.
> > I gathered other legends that can have links to the Amazons:
> > - HALIAI
> > Warrior women came from sea following Dionysus. They're killed by
> Perseus. Sometimes depicted as Sirens.
> > - DANAIDES
> > 50 women coming from Egypt (beyond Sea), husband-killers, killed by
> Lygkeus and punished in Tartarus.
> > - MAINADES
> > The wild furious women that followed Dionysus, sometimes explained
> as the nymphs that raised Dionysus. Dionysus sometimes ran after his
> foes hiding under sea, among the Nereides Sometimes the Mainades were
> described as the Kadmos's daughters, driven crazy by Dionysus.
> > - NEREIDES
> > 50 sea-nymphs. The Orphism put them as nurses of little Dionysus.
> Two of the Nereides, Autonoe & Agaue, had the same names as two
> Kadmos's daughters. According to Nereus was the same character as
> Proteus "First One"; Kadmos can came from Semitic Qadm "First".
> Proteus and Kadmos were associated to Phoenicia. Kadmos may have
> absorbed elements of Semitic Ba'al, as a dragon-killer.
> > - NYSAI
> > Other names of the nurses of Dionysus. Sometimes they were the
> Hyades. Connection with Heimdall, raised by sea-giantesses?
> > - LEMNIADES
> > Other group of women that kill men. They were islanders,
> then, "women from sea".
> > - THESPIADAI
> > 50 maidens that gave to Herakles his sons
> > - ENDYMIONIDES
> > 50 daughters of Endymion and Selene, the Moon. Sometimes from
> Caria, sometimes from Elis.
> >
> > Concluding:
> > Fifty wild and ferocious sea-nymphs, maybe connected to Moon,
> invading Greece and defeated by a Greek hero.
>
> There is some interesting Classical etymologies for Amazons
>
> Two in particular bear repeating.
>
> A-mazon = breastless, is the one most commonly given. It was
> explained that Amazons amputated their left breast so as to better
> shoot with the bow and arrow. Adriana mentioned this in one of her
> posts. It seems to be, however, a etymology working backwards from
> their name.
>
> The second
>
> Amaz-oi = girdle wearers. This is tied into other Greek myths about
> the Amazons. One of the 12 Labours of Hercules, for instance was to
> secure the girdle of Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons.
>
> Graves tells how Dionysus in his return from India was oposed by
> Amazons living near Ephesus. He persued them and they took refuge in
> the temple of Artemis where remnants were still living in classical
> times. Others fled to Samos by boat.
>
> In the story of Pegasus and Belerophon, the hero, sent by Iobates the
> King of Lycia to stay the Chimera, was later employed by the same
> king to attack the neighbouring warlike Solymians and their allies
> the Amazons.
>
> The Lybian Amozons story seems to have been the tale of Diodorus
> Siculus who is most unreliable in ethnography. He links the Amazons
> (a group of Berber tribes in which women had unusually high status
> for classical peoples) with the Atlantians (on the basis of the
> nearby presence of the Atlas mountains), and the proposes Lake
> Tritonis and the Gulf of Sirte as the site for Atlantis. Graves
> copies Diodorus in his entirity to propose Atlantis had a Lybian
> origin.
>
> There is also a Scythian connection in Greek Amazoni myth too.
> Hippolyta and Melanippe suggest an ancient horse cult. Graves links
> the Amazons with the Taurian cult of Artemis (also practiced in a
> tamer form at Ephesus. In Taurian Artemisian ritual men were slain
> by women). The Scythian connection (also mentioned by Herodotus) has
> recently been confirmed by the finds of women warrors in kurgans in
> this area.
>
> Amazons were considered to be daughters of Ares by the nymph
> Harmonia, born in the Phrygan area of the Thermodon River. They are
> spposed to have originally lived on the Don (Tanais). Lysippe (again
> a horse woman) led her followers around the shores of the Black Sea
> to settle in the area of Thermodon. Called Oerpatata by the Scythians
> propper who rejected them, as un-natural, they lived in three
> tribes. Three queens Marpesa, Lampado and Hippo (horse again) seized
> a great deal of Asia Minor and even Thrace, founding Ephesus and
> Smyrna, Thiba and Sinope. They are supposed to have captured Troy
> when Priam was a boy, establishing the Artemisia at Ephesus.
>
> Forced to withdraw, at the time of Hercules's labour they were ruled
> by Hippolyta, Melanippe and Antiope.
>
> The Amazons were forced out of Thermodor by the expanding Lydians,
> and moved to Colchis where their queen Minythyia accompanied
> Alexander the Great for thirteen days in his travels through Hyrcania.
>
> There is a story of connections with a queen Myrine who from ships
> settled Lesbos and founded Mytilene named after her sister. She is
> connected with Mopsus and the Libyan expeditions.
>
> How do we make sense out of these tales?
>
> Firstly there was a group that had women (as well as men) warriors
> amongst the Scytian and Sarmatian peoples.
>
> Secondly, the Askenaz (Scythians) did invade the Middle East pursuing
> the Cimmerians into this area. After destroying Uruartu, his
> perenial enemy, Ashurbanipal pursuaded them to turn west, where they
> fell upon Phrygia and got as far as the Aegean coast, burning a
> number of cities from Troy southwards.
>
> These people were expelled eventually by the expansion of the Lydian
> Empire, and forced to move into Albania (Caucasian Albania that is).
>
> Added to this there is a myth of an earlier people in Central
> Anatolia who held women in high repute, who conquered Troy, and whose
> remnants are linked in the voyages of Mopsus (tied in to the late
> Bronze Age collapse). These Amazons were the Hittites, during the
> reign of Hattusilis III and his queen Padukhepa (the Amazonian
> queen!). Greek mythographers regularly confused these events and
> conflated them into one story.
>
> Hope this helps
>
> Regards
>
> John
>
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