A Greek depiction of an Amazon (Athens, ca. 420 BC; Wikimedia)
The Greek story of the Amazons
The Amazons, in Greek mythology, were a group of warriors who were all women and girls. There were no men among them. One famous Greek story about the Amazons is the story of Penthesileia.
More about Penthesileia
More Greek myths
All our Ancient Greece articles
Where did the Amazons live?
According to the Greeks, the Amazons lived to the north of Greece, around the Black Sea.
Amazon with her Scythian name written alongside her leg
Were the Amazons real women?
These Greek stories probably come from the fact that among the people who lived north of the Black Sea – the Scythians and other people related to the Scythians like the Sogdians – women had a lot more power than they did in Greece.
Central Asian women
Where did the Scythians live?
All our Central Asia articles
How did Scythian women live?
In real life, men still had more power than women, even among the Scythians, but Greek travellers like Herodotus thought it was weird for women to be so free, and that was what they remembered about these people. Some Scythian women really did wear pants and ride horses and shoot bows and arrows in war.
Who was Herodotus?
Bows and arrows
History of horses
On Greek vases, paintings of Amazons often come with written name-tags, where the letters are Greek but spell out Scythian names. Chinese, Persian, Indian, and Egyptian stories also told about the fighting, free women of Central Asia.
Learn by doing: archery contests
More about the Scythians
Bibliography and further reading about the Amazons:
D’aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths, by Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire.
Pandora’s Box: A Three-Dimensional Celebration of the Mythology of Ancient Greece, by Sara Maitland and Christos Kondeatis (1995). Not really about Pandora specifically, but a complex of stories, games, and puzzles about Greek mythology. People love it!
