Amazons and Scythian Kurgans

The Amazons were a tribe of ancient Greek female warriors who rode horses and wore trousers. The knowledge we have of these legendary Amazons has come from both myths and ancient Greek historians. Apollonius of Rhodes, an ancient Greek author, claims that they were the daughters of Ares (whom they got their fighting inclinations from) and the wood nymph Harmonia. First mentioned by Homer in The Iliad, myths about the Amazons gained popularity with an increasing number of myths being written about them.

Ancient Greek historians provide us with sketchy knowledge of the Amazons. Herodotus, the ancient Greek historian, who was active in the 5th century, wrote about the Amazons, suggesting that they were real and alive in the same time period during which he was alive. As described by Diodorus, the ancient Greek historian, the Amazons were a nomadic culture who moved around the north of Asia Minor, shocking people in their trousers. The evidence of the many Amazon names with the prefix “hippo”, meaning horse, suggests that horses were a heavily ingrained part of culture for the Amazons¹, who would use them for transportation and war. Strabo, an ancient Greek historian, believed that the Amazons declared that no men were allowed to either stay or have sexual encounters in their country, which caused issue with the continuation of the Amazon race. So, once a year, the Amazons would visit the Gargareans, a neighbouring tribe of men, to conceive. The conception period would last for two months, after which the Amazons would leave the Gargareans. Any female babies would be kept by the Amazons, and any male babies by the Gargareans.

However, these historians relied on the myths of Homer to fill in the details of this ancient civilisation. For example, Homer describes the Amazons as “the peers of men”, and it is from sentences such as this that historians have expounded on the military skills of the Amazons. For this reason, modern historians have assumed that all the stories of the Amazons were merely myth.

Where once this was all supposed to be stuff of myth, recently archaeological sites have been excavated which may provide evidence that the Amazons actually existed.

Archaeologists have put considerable thought into how best to excavate the kurgans found so that the sites would not be damaged. In the 1990s, further “frozen tombs” were excavated in Berel. Great consideration was put in by the archaeologists as to how best to excavate the kurgans without thawing them, since ice was the key to how well the sites were preserved. In the end, it was decided that excavation shafts should be put into the ground in order to uncover the kurgans as quickly as possible. Once the site was surveyed, ice was put back so that the kurgans would stay cold and preserved until future analysis could be done. To properly analyse the skeletons without ruining them, refrigerators were brought to the site to keep the skeletons cool. During the whole process, the archaeologists were careful to keep any chemicals away so that nothing would be damaged in a way that meant further analysis would be impossible.

The excavation process appears to have been done with a lot of thought as to how to do it all properly, without damaging the environment or the findings. From reading a wide range of resources, the view of the archaeologists does not seem to be biased at all - they are taking all evidence into account instead of immediately assuming the skeletons are the bodies of the Amazons. Archaeologists seem to have performed the excavations properly; they have limited their damage to the sites and dated the artefacts found appropriately.

One of the factors of these excavations which make the evidence and results so reliable is how many teams of archaeologists have been working on this project. Despite the multitudes of people surveying the sites, the artefacts found and basic analysis of them have all been consistent. A wide range of perspectives mean that the same conclusion must be a solid and reliable one.

However, the collation of the findings has not been consistent. The data found by the archaeologists, even though it is reliable, has not been collated into one easy to access place, and instead it is often scattered and difficult to find. The surveys of the excavations are hard to access, so an archaeologist may find it hard to look with informed context upon the findings of their own excavation site.

Another issue with how the data has been collected is that it was often done without topographical references or a concrete coordinates system. Location is key in this wide-scale investigation as to whether the Amazons did or did not exist, which means that if the location of the kurgans was recorded inaccurately, this could skew the results.

In the kurgans are a number of suggestions that women such as the Amazon warriors did actually exist.

First, there are the rich kurgans, which show us that the funeral rite was very important for whatever culture buried their women in such an honourable way. The gold which was buried with the women could be an offering to the gods, as a way to make sure the corpse would pass peacefully into heaven; it could be an acknowledgement of the high status of the woman buried; or it could be a sign of sisterhood and respect in the passing of a fellow tribe member. Whatever the reason, it is obvious that these kurgans were important to the culture. The gold found in the frozen tombs combined with the perfume jars which were also found in the tombs demonstrates that these women were of a noble and high class. If the myths of the Amazons were assumed to be true, these riches could be spoils from the skirmishes they fought.

Secondly, the horses are buried with the women skeletons. From the myths of the Amazons, it is evident that horses were a heavily ingrained part of their culture, so it makes sense that they would be buried close to them. Horses were important for battle, and the myths of the Amazons claim that they were often fighting, so having horses would be essential. As well as being helpful in battle, horses would be excellent for transportation. In myth, the Amazons were said to be nomadic, so horses could aid them in moving efficiently around Asia Minor.

The women are buried with weapons. Women in 7th century BCE to 3rd century BCE did not typically use weapons, which made the Amazons, in their myths, so unusual and fascinating. Finding the skeletons buried with weapons was one of the most important elements of deciding if these women really were the Amazons. Since the Amazons were most famous for the fighting, having kurgans empty of any sign of weaponry would not have fit with our knowledge of them at all.

An important note while assessing the sites of the kurgans is how they are scattered around Asia Minor. The Amazons were thought to be a nomadic culture, so supposedly, they would also bury their dead in whatever place they were staying, instead of one central place. Despite this, the majority of the kurgans were located around the Don River to the Carpathian Mountains. While this is not where they lived in myth, it is where the Scythians lived. This is significant since is has been suggested by many historians and archaeologists that the Amazons were actually the Scythians or that the Amazons were descendants of the Scythians and separate group that were formerly lived in Asia Minor.

The kurgans and the artefacts found within them make it quite evident that there were women who fought and behaved in ways just like the Amazons do in their myths. No evidence has been found to suggest that these women were not the Amazons however, without any written description we cannot assume that these tombs did actually belong to the Amazons. What are described as Amazons by Greek historians and tellers of myth, might have been described as something entirely different by their own culture in a way that will remain unknown.

Since the key issue here is the difference between the Scythians and the Amazons and the other cultures that existed in the same time period, it is imperative that the culture of the warrior skeletons found have some sort of writing to clearly identify them to a certain community. Without a specific label, it is hard to tell if these skeletons really did belong to Amazons, or were the skeletons of Scythians, or whether Scythians and Amazons were the same group.

Historians have differing ideas about what the kurgans tell us. Some historians have concluded that Scythians and a culture which originated from Asia Minor combined to form a new culture, theSauromations, or the Amazons. A second group of historians believe that the Sauromations had a military service which existed for noble women (V.I Guliaev, 2019).

In the first theory, no historian has a plausible explanation for why only female skeletons have been found in the frozen kurgans. This first theory relies upon Herodotus, who wrote that a tribe from Asia Minor came to Scythia and fought the people there, but ended up settling and forming an entirely new culture of Sauromations, otherwise known as Amazons. While some credit must been given to Herodotus, who styles himself as a historian and therefore must have at least some element of truth in his renditions of history, he was not known to be particularly skilled at geography, which makes some of his facts a little less relevant. Further, while reading any of Herodotus’ work, it is essential to be critical of his viewpoint, since he was a man in a time where women were made to be subservient so his account of the Amazons, a group of powerful women, may be biased and untruthful at times. He wrote that the Amazons worshipped the goddess of fertility, and so far archaeologists have found no evidence to support that theory. So it is quite possible that he extrapolated stereotypes of women to create a legend of the Amazons which may not have been founded on any truth.

It seems most likely that within the Scythians there was an entire subculture which was formed purely of women, and this group was known as the Amazons. If this theory were true, it would explain why the majority of the kurgans were found in South-Eastern Ukraine, where the Scythians lived at the same time the Amazons were said to have lived. It also accounts for the kurgans filled with gold, perfume jars and weapons, as well as the horses buried close to the skeletons. This group would have been quite similar to the military service of noble women that Guilaev² discussed. The notion of the military service would explain why kurgans were not only found in South-Eastern Ukraine, but in other areas in Asia Minor as well. It would also clarify why their are horses buried with the women. If a horse died in battle, it would be completely illogical to take the corpse back to their base, since that would require effort and strength. The perfume jars found in the kurgans suggest that the women buried were of a high class, and this is consistent with the concept of the military service was for noble women.

This group of Scythian women would not have lived in complete isolation from the other Scythians, but would have come back and visited, to socialise as well as to reproduce. The myth of the Amazons visiting the Gargareans to conceive may not be as far from reality as it seems, given that the Amazonian subculture may have visited the mainstream race of Scythians regularly and potentially annually in order to keep from dying out.

• ¹ Adrienne Mayor, in the article Names of Ancient Amazons, on the website Wonders and Marvels
• ² V.I Guliaev synthesised all the writings of ancient Greek historians and authors who mentioned the Amazons, and accounted for it all in their conclusion of the Amazons. Other modern historians have formed conclusions which do not account for all of the writings which mentioned the Amazons.