Searching for the Amazons: the real warrior women of the ancient world

Description

Introduction: Changing myths, emerging truths -- A legend and its meaning -- Close encounters of the Scythian kind -- A short chapter on breasts -- Treasures in bone and gold -- The ice maiden -- Sarmatians: the roots of the legend -- The return of the mounted archer -- Amazonia: from dreams to new reality -- A painting, two plays and a suicide -- The Amazons of "Black Sparta" -- Amazons with wings: Russia's night witches -- Wonder Woman: the secret origins of an Amazon princess -- Epilogue: Halfway to Amazonia.;"Since the time of the ancient Greeks we have been fascinated by accounts of the Amazons, an elusive tribe of hard-fighting, horse-riding female warriors. Equal to men in battle, legends claimed they cut off their right breasts to improve their archery skills and routinely killed their male children to purify their ranks. For centuries people believed in their existence and attempted to trace their origins. Artists and poets celebrated their battles and wrote of Amazonia. Spanish explorers, carrying these tales to South America, thought they lived in the forests of the world's greatest river, and named it after them. In the absence of evidence, we eventually reasoned away their existence, concluding that these powerful, sexually liberated female soldiers must have been the fantastical invention of Greek myth and storytelling. Until now. Following decades of new research and a series of groundbreaking archeological discoveries, we now know these powerful warrior queens did indeed exist. In Searching for the Amazons, John Man travels to the grasslands of Central Asia--from the edge of the ancient Greek world to the borderlands of China--to discover the truth about the truth about these women whose legend has resonated over the centuries."--Publisher's description.