June 18, 2001

Ancient Warrior Women


Ancient Warrior Women

Back in the ancient times, in a part of the world that is now part of Russia, there is believed to have lived a powerful race of women warriors. Popularly known as Amazons, these women have long been a part of Greek mythology. Xena, the popular television show, is a representation of these mythological women; this is not to say that the show is necessarily historically accurate.

The region along the east coast of the Black Sea (Pontus Euxidus), near the Sea of Azov and south of the Causasus, was known to the ancients as Colchis. This is the place where the mythological Jason and the Argonauts conquered the Golden Fleece. It is, also, the alleged birthplace of Medea, warrior and daughter of the king, Aeetes. Medea became Jason's wife. The Greek historian, Herodotus, believed that the region of Colchis had been inhabited by Egyptians in roughly the 19th century BC. Many of the people of Colchis were, thus, descendants of these Egyptians. While history does not support this notion, the fact remains that many African communities did exist in this region.

Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball, Center for the Study of the Eurasian Nomads, in Berkeley, California, is certain that the warrior women, or Amazons, did exist. In 1995, she led excavations which unearthed fifty kurgans (burial mounds) near Pokrovka, Russia; in the Eurasian Steppe, near the border of Kazakstan. The dig exposed the remains of women who had been buried with weapons and other artifacts and dated to ca. 600 BC. Furthermore, the skeleton of a teenaged female featured dramatic bowed legs bones which indicated that this individual had spend a good bit of time, and from an early age, astride a horse. There was evidence that this young woman had been killed by an arrow to the chest. It is believed that these skeletons belong to the Scythians.

No one really knows the origin of the, so called, Amazons. Legend has it that a group of them escaped from their Greek captors aboard a ship in the Black Sea. They came ashore by the Sea of Azov, warred with and eventually mated with the local Scythians from Colchis (south of the Caucasus). Their children are known as Sauromations; the earliest ancestors of the Sarmatian tribes. Their history is dramatic and involves most of the major events of ancient Greek mythology. The region of Scythia spanned along the forest steppes, bordered by the Carpathian Mountains and the Don River. It was believed that the Scythians died out in the early 300's BC. New evidence suggests that then evolved from a warring tribe to an agricultural one.

Herodotus claimed that the Sarmatian women carried forth the ancient Amazon traditions: hunting and fighting on horseback along side their men and dressing like the men. In fact, legend states that a Sarmatian girl could not marry until she had her first kill in battle. Excavations have revealed that these women were buried with the implements of war. A wealth of artifacts, from the Middle Sarmatian period (ca. 100 BC to AD 150) have been found in the burial sites at Kobyakovo, Kosika, Rostov-on-Don and Krasnogorovka.

Like this post? Get a weekly email digest + member-only deals

Some of Our Books

A Taste of Chekhov

A Taste of Chekhov

This compact volume is an introduction to the works of Chekhov the master storyteller, via nine stories spanning the last twenty years of his life.
Fearful Majesty

Fearful Majesty

This acclaimed biography of one of Russia’s most important and tyrannical rulers is not only a rich, readable biography, it is also surprisingly timely, revealing how many of the issues Russia faces today have their roots in Ivan’s reign.
Jews in Service to the Tsar

Jews in Service to the Tsar

Benjamin Disraeli advised, “Read no history: nothing but biography, for that is life without theory.” With Jews in Service to the Tsar, Lev Berdnikov offers us 28 biographies spanning five centuries of Russian Jewish history, and each portrait opens a new window onto the history of Eastern Europe’s Jews, illuminating dark corners and challenging widely-held conceptions about the role of Jews in Russian history.
Tolstoy Bilingual

Tolstoy Bilingual

This compact, yet surprisingly broad look at the life and work of Tolstoy spans from one of his earliest stories to one of his last, looking at works that made him famous and others that made him notorious. 
Turgenev Bilingual

Turgenev Bilingual

A sampling of Ivan Turgenev's masterful short stories, plays, novellas and novels. Bilingual, with English and accented Russian texts running side by side on adjoining pages.
White Magic

White Magic

The thirteen tales in this volume – all written by Russian émigrés, writers who fled their native country in the early twentieth century – contain a fair dose of magic and mysticism, of terror and the supernatural. There are Petersburg revenants, grief-stricken avengers, Lithuanian vampires, flying skeletons, murders and duels, and even a ghostly Edgar Allen Poe.
Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

Davai! The Russians and Their Vodka

In this comprehensive, quixotic and addictive book, Edwin Trommelen explores all facets of the Russian obsession with vodka. Peering chiefly through the lenses of history and literature, Trommelen offers up an appropriately complex, rich and bittersweet portrait, based on great respect for Russian culture.
Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

Steppe / Степь (bilingual)

This is the work that made Chekhov, launching his career as a writer and playwright of national and international renown. Retranslated and updated, this new bilingual edition is a super way to improve your Russian.
The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

The Little Humpbacked Horse (bilingual)

A beloved Russian classic about a resourceful Russian peasant, Vanya, and his miracle-working horse, who together undergo various trials, exploits and adventures at the whim of a laughable tsar, told in rich, narrative poetry.
Murder at the Dacha
July 01, 2013

Murder at the Dacha

Senior Lieutenant Pavel Matyushkin has a problem. Several, actually. Not the least of them is the fact that a powerful Soviet boss has been murdered, and Matyushkin's surly commander has given him an unreasonably short time frame to close the case.

At the Circus
January 01, 2013

At the Circus

This wonderful novella by Alexander Kuprin tells the story of the wrestler Arbuzov and his battle against a renowned American wrestler. Rich in detail and characterization, At the Circus brims with excitement and life. You can smell the sawdust in the big top, see the vivid and colorful characters, sense the tension build as Arbuzov readies to face off against the American.

Fish
February 01, 2010

Fish

This mesmerizing novel from one of Russia’s most important modern authors traces the life journey of a selfless Russian everywoman. In the wake of the Soviet breakup, inexorable forces drag Vera across the breadth of the Russian empire. Facing a relentless onslaught of human and social trials, she swims against the current of life, countering adversity and pain with compassion and hope, in many ways personifying Mother Russia’s torment and resilience amid the Soviet disintegration.

Faith & Humor
December 01, 2011

Faith & Humor

A book that dares to explore the humanity of priests and pilgrims, saints and sinners, Faith & Humor has been both a runaway bestseller in Russia and the focus of heated controversy – as often happens when a thoughtful writer takes on sacred cows. The stories, aphorisms, anecdotes, dialogues and adventures in this volume comprise an encyclopedia of modern Russian Orthodoxy, and thereby of Russian life.

Marooned in Moscow
May 01, 2011

Marooned in Moscow

This gripping autobiography plays out against the backdrop of Russia's bloody Civil War, and was one of the first Western eyewitness accounts of life in post-revolutionary Russia. Marooned in Moscow provides a fascinating account of one woman's entry into war-torn Russia in early 1920, first-person impressions of many in the top Soviet leadership, and accounts of the author's increasingly dangerous work as a journalist and spy, to say nothing of her work on behalf of prisoners, her two arrests, and her eventual ten-month-long imprisonment, including in the infamous Lubyanka prison. It is a veritable encyclopedia of life in Russia in the early 1920s.

Bears in the Caviar
May 01, 2015

Bears in the Caviar

Bears in the Caviar is a hilarious and insightful memoir by a diplomat who was “present at the creation” of US-Soviet relations. Charles Thayer headed off to Russia in 1933, calculating that if he could just learn Russian and be on the spot when the US and USSR established relations, he could make himself indispensable and start a career in the foreign service. Remarkably, he pulled it of.

About Us

Russian Life is a publication of a 30-year-young, award-winning publishing house that creates a bimonthly magazine, books, maps, and other products for Russophiles the world over.

Latest Posts

Our Contacts

Russian Life
73 Main Street, Suite 402
Montpelier VT 05602

802-223-4955