Joao wrote
> 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.
I think that many cultures that are heavily patriarchal in attitudes
(as were the classical Greeks) justify their attitudes to the
supression of women through a myth about the far past where women
ruled the men. I certainly found such stories widespread in the
Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea when I was there.
It is interesting that the Amazon story spread from Athens, not from
Sparta. Laocedamian women preserved a great deal of autonomy (which
scandalised the Athenians, who kept women much more subservient to
the
interests of men). It is also interesting that the Amazonian mythos
is associated with classical Greece, from an area which in Mycenaean
and pre-Mycenaean times seems to have (like the Western Anatolian
area) been strongly Matrifocal. Jacquetta Hawkes in particular
demonstrates how this "change" from a gender partnership to a male
dominated patriarchy occurred in Archaic times (from 900-700 BCE).
For instance, the women play a huge role in the genealogies of the
Heroic period, but in the post Heroic period only male ancestor names
were preserved.
The Amazonian mythos dates exactly from the time of the Hesiodic
theogony, the period in which Greek horizons were widening again,
post
Homeric, as a result of the recovery that occurred in the Eastern
Mediterranean in the 8th century. By then Ionic, Dorian and Aeolian
settlement had already occurred on the coast of Asia Minor and Sea
routes were well open. Late Geometric and early Attic ware is found
throughout the Euxine Basin, and Athens was already specialising in
the export of Olive Oil and the import of grain from the Scythians to
support its burgeoning population.
To a maritime civilisation, hemmed in by mountains and turned to face
the sea, it is hardly surprising that a culture in Scythia in which
there were mounted women warriors would have attracted the Athenian's
attention. (The fact that there were also mounted male warriors
alongside them did not strike the Greeks as odd and so was not
reported).
Joao, your pointing to the earlier Maritime based "Amazonians" see my
post concerning Hittites. Queen Padukhepa is reputed to have
organised the Hittite fleet's attack on Cyprus. From Minoan times
women from Crete served as sailors on the vessels from Keftiu (as
Egyptian wall paintings show). The Western Anatolian region had a
long tradition of male and female equality. Queen Artemisia (the
wife
of Maulos of Harlicarnassus - who built for her husband the
Maulosseum
- one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world), commanded the Carian
navy at the Battle of Salamis. Xerses who watched her bravery, and
her fighting prowess when compared to the failure of his own navy,
commented (according to Herodotus), "the women fight like men and the
men fight like women!".
To the Athenians (of whom the sailors were all men) this again led to
confusion about sexual equality being read as "women dominating".
Hope this helps
Regards
John