Warrior Women - Were They Real? | Amazons, Scythians, & Sauromatians in Myth & History
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- čas přidán 28. 03. 2024
- The idea of female warriors or warrior women is a staple across much of science fiction and fantasy, with examples ranging from Xena, to Wonder Woman, to Katniss. Warrior women featured as a trope in ancient cultures and mythology as well, perhaps none so much as the famous Amazons of Greek and Roman legend. Archaeologists and historians have long wondered if there was indeed something to these stories.
This is where the Scythians and Sauromatians come in! Greek texts (and some others, such as Persian) tell us that the Amazons lived initially in Pontus, but that they eventually moved to the Pontic-Caspian steppe. This was where the Scythians, and later the Sauromatians, lived. It’s probable that legends about warrior women and the Amazons were reinforced and grew due to the presence of the Scythians, who apparently had female warriors of their own.
The presence of warrior women in Scythian and Sauromatian culture was disputed for an extremely long time. However, the excavations of Scythian kurgans and the sequencing of DNA in those graves has essentially confirmed the presence of female warriors in Scythian culture, and their presence continues to grow.
SOURCES:
The Scythians, Barry Cunliffe, esp. chapter 5
The Eurasia Steppe, Warwick Ball, esp. chapter 4
Scythian Archers of the 4th century BC, Marina Daragan
New Investigations of Scythian Kurgans & their Periphery in the Lower Danube Region, Polin et al
Tomb Containing Three Generations of Warrior Women Unearthed in Southern Russia, Machemer
Different Gentes, Same Amazons: Liccardo
Women Warriors & the Amazon Myth, Vovoura
"Kurgans", eh? There can only be one!!
It’s better to burn out, than fade away!
Haplogroup U2 was identified in Russia in a 30,000 year old Cro-Magnon. Scholars believe that this group, after migrating north, became the dominant lineage among the foragers who eventually settled in Central Asia and South Asia and became the Indo-Iranian groups.
Haplogroup F is an ancestral branch in the Y-DNA tree. It is the parent haplogroup to several other Y-DNA haplogroups, including G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, and T. Haplogroup F represents a deep ancestral lineage.
Haplogroup IJ originated on the Iranian platue 49 000 - 44 000 years ago. Haplogroup IJ became Haplogroup J in West Asia and Haplogroup I in Europe.
R1b is Indo-European. the oldest R1b subplate was found on the Iranian plateau. R1a is believed to have been the dominant haplogroup among the northern and eastern Proto-Indo-European tribes, which evolved into the Indo-Iranian, Thracian, Baltic and Slavic peoples. The Proto-Indo-Europeans originated with the Yamna culture people (3300-2500 BC). and migrated to Central Europe and created the Corded Ware culture.
The ancient Iranian peoples include the Alans, the Bactrians, the Dahae, the Khwarazmians, the Massagetae, the Medes, the Parthians, the Persians, the Sagartians, the Sakas, the Sarmatians, the Scythians, the Sogdians, and the Cimmerians, among other Iranian-speaking peoples of West Asia, Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Eastern Steppe.
Fatyanova are the ancient Iranians before they split from the Kurgan tribes, they migrated and many of their descendants migrated to other regions and became Abashevo, Sintashta, Androvnova, Srubnaya.
The Sintashta and Andronovo are clearly Indo-Iranians. The Fatyanovo and Abashevo can be regarded as proto-Indo-Iranians.
@@VerbalWarrior162 Sir, this is a Wendy's.
Don't lose your head about it.
Interestingly, female remains were recently found in Azerbaijan with deformities in the fingers and hips, indicating extensive use of bows and riding of horses.
I also love that in Herodotus account the young Scythian men and the Amazons are meeting each other as equals. The women don't look down on the men as in many other stories with the Amazons and the men also don't look down on the women. It's a completely equal relationship between the sexes which is rarely seen as portrayed in the ancient sources.
Tomboy enjoyers the lot of them
@@semi-useful5178 I don't blame them
@@cyberiansailor9741
Not into them myself, but I can support my brother so that they will support me.
@@semi-useful5178Tomboys are fit af
It is likely Pontus was a sphere of influence for the Nomadic Scythians in the pre-hellenic crossroads of the Old World.
Your manner of explaining history is brilliant. We understand HOW we know something and we are reminded of the challenges to knowing the truth. We'll done as always 🎉
Thank you!
Such accounts of “Amazons” are near-certainly exaggerated.
However, especially in the case of the Scythians, there is very likely some truth in such records. Especially as Nomadic cultures such as the Scythians require all members of such cultures to be hunters, warriors, and shepherds at the same time.
It is interesting that Nomadic cultures allow more flexibility to sex roles. But I wonder how sustainable such roles are or does it eventually become similar to what it is in many other different cultures?
@@johnrockwell5834afaik traditional gender roles are usually adopted once a society is stationary and well-established because that's when the needs of that society change to require those sorts of gender roles, whereas nomadic and hunter-gatherer cultures usually require everyone to have more flexible tasks by necessity (I'm no expert though)
@@johnrockwell5834gendered roles are a luxary of large populations in my opinion.
when you are a tribe of maybe 50 to 100 people, I would imagine roles are dolled out more on skill and nessecity rather than A gender expectation.
especially when it comes to fighting for survival. if you are a band of 100 people, let's say 50 of whom are battle ready as in, are not children or elderly. and you are attacked, are you really going to say "no women allowed" and get rid of another maybe 20 or so potential fighters? even if they weren't trained in melee combat, another 20 folks with slings would do a lot.
I would also imagine the stronger sense of community would pick up to still raise and care for a child whose parents both died in fighting to defend the tribe. whereas in a large population or society that responsibility would often be dispersed to the point of non-existence if both parents were dead.
Nomadic culture are not always primitive or small. A small caveat.
@@davedavidson8208
Hunter Gatherers as far as I know had gendered roles.
But as for nomadic societies. Women will still have athletic differences compared to men. So even then it makes sense to have gendered roles. But with more flexibility.
This makes me wonder if there's a market for scythian spotted patterned onesies.
I know people that would buy them I am not sure how I should feel about that
It fits the fashion in Star Trek of NG era spot on.
I would buy it but not sure if there is a market. Maybe keep it under 50$
I was going to make some heavily Scythian-inspired histopunk stuff one of these days. There is a chance here to come up with designs that are both more comfy and more dignified than a lot of western fashion, if it turns out well.
0:21 0:33 1:56 The Iliad 2:36 Troy (mentions of 'Amazons' in 'The Labours of Hercules', and 'Jason and the Argonauts')
3:23 Black and red ware of sub-standard artistry
3:28 'Herodotus'
8:13
13:14 Finally: the 'SAURO-mations'
13:24 'Pseudo-Hippocrates': we appreciate the differentiatian
Curiously, several female skeletons were discovered in Azerbaijan not long ago, and they had abnormalities in their hips and fingers, suggesting that they used bows and horses frequently.
Great video, Mike. Well balanced and by far the most comprehensive that I have seen.
A facinating subject. One of my favorites. Thank you sir! ❤
You’re welcome!
been waiting a while for this one.
Always excited to see an upload love this channel
Thank you!
Great video. I wanted to bring up a different angle, to provide more context/information about possible Amazons of the Greek world outside of the Black Sea region.
Case for Arabic Amazons: You have a series of Arab queens who fought against Tiglath-Pileser III and Sennacherib in the Assyrian records. First is Queen Zabibe of the Qedar, succeeded by Queen Samsi. Queen Samsi is succeeded by Queen Yatie. Yatie was succeeded by Te’elhunu, another Arabic Queen. The last recorded Qedar queen by the Assyrians in this line of succession was Queen Tabua. All five of these queens were a military headache for the Assyrians in various states of containment by the Assyrians. It seems like the conflict centered around control of the incense trade. There is no record of women directly fighting, but it is interesting to note that the Queens are clearly the one’s in charge of the Qedar and not their husbands, who the Assyrians recognized as the subservient male consorts of these Warlike Arab Queens. If the Queens ruled over the men, then there is a higher likelihood that women who wished to take up arms were probably not held back due to gender norms of their culture.
Case for Libyan Amazons: There is less information here, but you do have a much later Berber Queen in a similar tradition as the old Queens of Qedar. Queen Kahina “The diviner” ruled at her peak the entire Maghreb, and led a relatively successful Berber resistance against the Arab Muslim invasion of North Africa. This is a fascinating read if you are not familiar with it. Additionally, In the Siwa Oasis today, (location of the Oracle of Amun), women seem to have a much more authoritative role than you’d expect in an Islamic household, one could argue in some ways they still are the head of the household in private household matters due to the patriarchal nature of Islam.
Case for connecting Arabic/Libyan/Scythian Amazons: All three regions contained nomadic raiding cultures, and while there is no solid evidence that would connect these groups together, I believe a speculative case can be made that these distant cultures might have interacted or even been related at one point due to their nomadic nature. The Middle East region (unlike mountainous Greece) has always been a highway of nomadic traffic. It’s difficult to project power into the wasteland regions, as seen as recently as the continued existence of ISIS out in the deserts even today. Established civilizations have generally stuck to their cities and rivers in the region, leaving the desert/steppe to the nomad. During the Armana period, there are many mentions of nomadic peoples, such as Habiru and Ahlamu. I won’t get into the speculation of who exactly the Habiru were, but what we do know, it was generally a catch all phrase for nomadic raiders/mercenaries/pastorialists who travelled between Egypt, as far as Elam to the east, and past the Caucus mountains to the north. The Ahlamu are assumed to be the nomadic culture that the later Arameans arise from. These nomadic groups would be the most likely candidate for conducting long distance trade between the established urban civilizations, as attested in the conflict between Assyria and the Arab Qedar Queens over the Incense trade. I bring up the Incense trade specifically because Southern Arabic incense was used in various rites conducted by Scythian and Thracian Rulers. This does not automatically imply a direct connection, but it does show that people were transporting incense between Southern Arabia and up into Scythia. You had the invasion of Scythian King Madyes into the Fertile Crescent, all the way down to Egypt and his conquest of Media during the late Neo-Assyrian period in the 7th century BCE. Scythian religious customs, such as the “Sacred Farna” is also seen in later Persian customs showing the relative ease that these groups outside of the urban centers probably had interacting with one another.
Very interesting comment, brother
Perhaps the idea of them originating from Pontus stems from a cultural memory of interacting with a tribe/nomadic people who had female warriors and then that conflating with the Scythians over time? I do find nomadic culture fascinating, like relative to settled societies they were more egalitarian though some more so than others and it is a same its kinda of impossible to find out more given the nature of the archaeology
Another fascinating topic.
tyvm again
🦬🇨🇦😁
You’re welcome! 🇺🇸 🦅
Wait so you are telling me if i bury myself with random stuff i'm messing with a random guy in the future?
Maybe!
@@TheFallofRome gotta get myself a mecha.
Especially if you have Klinenfelter Syndrome like the grave in Birka everyone thought was a woman warrior :D
If a woman had to kill three people before marrying, how many children would she need to bear in order to attain a growing population? Likewise, what is found at a burial site can have plenty of meanings. For example, a guard could gift his sword so his sword might continue to protect against foes (and imagine that the deceased did not die of violence). Even so, while an average man is stronger than an average woman, a bow or a spear can really turn the tide, especially if one combatant has a weapon and the other is unarmed. And surely, the lives on the steppes could have been far more dangerous than the lives in the Greek cities. I would not be surprised if most women could defend themselves. Even so, that is far from being predominantly professional soldiers. There, I would be quite skeptical.
Another thing that can be tested is the soil around the female bodies for iron\bronze or other metals trances should be left in the soil for testing. Even after looting don't know how long in the soil for trances to be left but if more than a decade I think there should be some left.
Oh that’s an interesting point! I’ll see if I can find anything that has done research of that type
Well, consider this. When the Sumerian ascets, the Scythians moved to the steppes of Asia, named that place their new homeland. In Scythian you spell homeland like this - 'Hun'. Creating a vast alliance with the tribes of the steppe, they formed the Hun federation. This was the Hun empire.
This summer I will be doing excavations in Benin where there have been claims that female warriors lived there. I doubt that I will have any contact with military remains, but it is interesting nonetheless. Kingdom of Dahomey is anyone is interested.
Thats great, West Africa is relatively neglected in archaeology
IIRC we have actual pictures of the women's regiment of the kings of Dahomey so that goes a little beyond just "claims"...
@@MCArt25 well some of those claims get stretched into some crazy stuff sometimes, so I want to be careful with what I say on the internet lol
@@winkpoke1576Good luck in your findings and careful not to break anything! It goes without saying too that record everything down
@@comradeofthebalance3147 oh yeah for sure! We do a lot of photogrammetry nowadays which is a process where we’ll take probably 5-10,000 really close up pictures and pop them into a computer program that aligns the pictures together into an interactive 3d model that is astoundingly high resolution and is perfectly to scale. I usually work in the Ancient Near East so I’ve done it on a smaller scale (made models of a few cuneiform tablets) but a lot of people do photogrammetric models for whole archeological sites and it is intense! I recently met a dude from Alexandria Egypt who is mapping a whole 500,000 sq m area of seafloor that contains a lot of rubble from the old Alexandria lighthouse that collapsed. He said the model took his computer two months straight to render lol. The whole photogrammetry process is super useful for studying artifacts and other sites remotely and it also preserves this sites permanently into a digital form.
I have a question: is the gold statue featured at 10:12 a piece created by Scythians or a creation from a later or altogether different group?
As far as I am aware that is Scythian
The craftsmanship is superb, the horse in the following piece is really remarkable
I recall reading somewhere that a lot of the Scythian gold works were done in the Greek style, or by colonial Greeks around the black sea where the cultures had a lot of contact through trade and mercenary work. They have found Scythian gold works that predated the Greek colonies though, and they were stylistically different and intricate enough that the Scythians definitely had skill with gold working. It's possible that the Scythians (or their ancestors) might have actually learned goldsmithing before the Greeks because the oldest known gold smithed artifacts were found at the Varna necropolis in Bulgaria, and i believe that region would have had more and likely earlier contact with steppe peoples to the north than the proto Greeks to their south.
There are a number of cultures which purportedly which included female warriors, including Vikings and some Native Americans. There is some evidence to indicate that these cultures did indeed have some female warriors, but I don’t think there’s significant evidence that it was terribly common. In an era of hand-to-hand combat, it seems unlikely that many women could have distinguished themselves as warriors. It almost certainly happened to some degree in some cultures and the Greeks would have found that remarkable enough to build a whole mythos around it.
At 4:50 he says that anthropologists have a term for how we study texts from old cultures that aren't around anymore. I couldn't catch that, anyone knows how it is spelled?
It’s more to do with views of culture in general, but the terms you’re looking for are “etic” and “emic”
@@TheFallofRomeThank you very much! I'm studying latin and the brief description you gave of the "etic" view resonated with my and some of my collegue's experience of trying to learn latin as opposed to more modern languages, which piqued my interest. Love your videos.
It's worth noting that the Mino or "Dahomean Amazons" definitely were real, so the historical existence and viability of a large scale all-female elite warrior regiment isn't in doubt. Regardless of whether the amazons of the ancient world were real and regardless of whether they were a large scale force of some kind or whether only a few women in these ancient cultures were warriors, the existence of the Mino is well-documented in modern times and in the age of photography, so we can say that the idea that a similar force might have existed and have been viable at some point in the ancient world is plausible, on the basis that such a force did exist in the modern period and was viable at that time. Another example from modern times is the YPJ or Women's Protection Units in Syria, who are an all-female, female-commanded militia of 7,000 to 24,000 women at its height (estimates have varied over time), who alongside a mixed-gender militia called the YPG played a key role in defeating ISIS in Syria. The formation of the Mino in Dahomey took place in the context of a depleted male fighting-age population due to the trans-atlantic slave trade and a long period of constant warfare between the states of coastal West Africa in which many states were effectively compelled to constantly fight one another in order to obtain captives they could sell to the Europeans in exchange for firearms necessary to maintain their security and independence against hostile neighbors which existed under the same compulsion. The lack of fighting-age men likely played a role in inspiring the creation of an elite all-female fighting force in Dahomey. The YPJ in contrast appears to have been partly inspired by feminist ideas held by the leadership of the Syrian Democratic Forces which they fight for, but the scale and viability of the YPJ likely also came about due to the existential stakes of the war against ISIS and the especially horrendous treatment of women and girls by ISIS. Many women likely signed up to fight against ISIS as a form of immediate and personal self-defense. Although the YPJ initially accepted married women to fight when ISIS threatened to annihilate many of the peoples who fought against them in Northeast Syria, they have since restricted the YPJ to only unmarried women, on the view that the pressures of raising a family and fighting at the same time are too great. The MIno of Dahomey similarly was composed only of sworn-virgins throughout its existence.
IIRC, there was a legend that a Scythian warrior queen visited Alexander the Great and basically kept him confined to his tent for two weeks because she wanted to conceive a child by the strongest king in the world. What a life he led, that Alexander.
I like how it jumps from 4 to 300 at the end with no reason.
Also not mentioned if they had any healed battle wounds or skeletal changes due to training. So far the evidence are as solid as for the mentioned cannibals.
The issik inscription in a scyhtian kurgan is now proven iranic. Tousend years before tocharians conquared eastasia too. Indoeuropeans were in all asia exept japan..
Great job ,but forgot to mention persian sources on the scythians which where in contact way way more with them, as they shared borders in central asia, bactria and the caspian sea. There's also entire kingdoms in the black sea which had scythian origins such as bosphoran kingdom
someting i found a bit fun for a while, is that the classical greeks, saw the people to the north of them, as uncivillised barbarians. I am like "dude youre bronze age ancestors, had close contact to scandinavia, and now you would call them uncivillised barbarians, what the hell happen to youre guys memories?". Its a thing that has just baffled me, the last couple of months .😆
They had more contact with the Egyptians and Persians then with scandinavia. Just look at their alphabet. Linear A and B was created inspired by the Egyptians and the last was just phoenician.
Blisk Gelona please 🙏
It’s almost finished!
Love love love love LOVE... I am tired of their wars...
l think the Scythian Kurgan culture of female warriors is rather convincing as the source of Homer's Amazon in llliad.
I admit I had a giggle when you said "men subservient to women, because in Greece it was usually the other way around" cue 'Sparta enters the chat' ;)
Hell yes! If I was an emperor, dictator, etc. you bet I'd have an army of Amazon warriors. Enemy dudes would line up to have a chance to get beaten up.
👍
Oh. With speech again. Got a little bit concerned with the last one,
Strong women 💪💪💪
I wonder why there are no depictions in Scythian artwork. Or, rather, why we have no known examples of them in Scythian artworks.
Nomadic tribes are just gonna have less art that will last- carved, painted on wall, sculpted. Any art they did make (and surely they had art we know they had tattoos) was probably put on objects that have since crumbled away.
We find art made of metal in their kurgans because that will last but clothing and pictures no so much. They also had their kurgans raided for goods just before archaeology could preserve them but despite that we still have found some goods like rugs and pottery
Does it hurt to know of so many backstabbers? To see so many of them? It does, I won't lie.
Good subject. I am looking forward to the first dissertation on the history of women oand horses. The first horses were smaller than the kinds later breeding has led to. Thus it is very likely that the first riders were women and children... Why does nobody ever mention this in connection with the Amazons, who are placed smack dab in the middle of where horse riding originated..
Amazon ?... 😏
The Roman historians claimed Amazons were Libyan. Destroyed Atlantis and fought with Medusas. Always suspected Romans believing Medusas inhabitating Africa was a tall tale arising from African women having their hair in dreadlocks.
hihi fun fact,in 800 year in Bulgaria,battle,for Varbitca pass in khan Krum army have many woman warriors,and they hate verry much roman emperor Nikephoros hihi.They are documented
Can't remember name but a Byzantine historian records half naked women warriors bodies being on battlefield after battle. Don't agree with the interpretation that the historian mistook female civilian casualties as warriors as historian makes no mention of barbarians using civilians as human shields in the battle (which being Roman wanting to degrade barbarians he would have done). Sword and spear techniques 🗡️ can eliminate much of the advantages of male has over a female.
A "broad overview."
I see what you did there 😉
The amazons lived in the Pontic region of what is today Turkey.That's documented on every Greek text.What is also documented is that the women that started the house or the colony or however you wanna name the a-mazon civilization are originally from what is today Greece,from Thracian decent,speaking the Thracian dialect which is one of the Greek dialects as is mentioned in plato's kratylos.
They are not related to,at least originally to the Scythians.Consequently due to the proximity of Pontus to the Scythian's and the distance from mainland Greece they would obviously trade and come in contact with them.This happened with all Pontian Greeks.They because closer to the people around Pontus that the ones that lived in mainlands Greece while they attained their heritage language and characteristics.As a matter of fact thats one of the things that makes Pontians so unique amongst the Greek peoples.Same thing that happened with the Egyptian Greeks,they Italian Greeks and the (todays)Syrian Greeks.
If the Thracian language was a Greek dialect, today half of Europe would speak Greek, but it does not.
Speaking as a former professional infantry soldier, women generally make awful soldiers in the 21st century, I cannot but think they would have been even less effective back when muscle power and strength and hand to hand combat were much more important.
A. They were almost certainly exclusively horse archers.
B. They were most likely like later central Asian nomadic groups, not actually equal at at all but more so than in the settled people's. They would have known how to ride and hunt but mostly kept themselves to embroidery, keeping house and raising children. There were just no cultural qualms about them fighting if needed, and if the nomads took their tents with them they would be encountered, but they probably weren't professional in permanently organised in any sense.
As in any period the stepp people's wouldn't sit on their hands and let their yurts be burnt. The same in many warrior cultures, the Japanese wouldn't be called egalitarian, and yet if the hearth was under threat women would turn out with weapons to reinforce the men.
Not to mention that war is dangerous and men are biological speaking more expendable
Unfortunately the female warrior concept has become absurd
with fantasy trash movies like 'Spec Os Lioness'..but All credit
to the gutsy Kurd militia female fighters in recent conflicts, but
granted they are not prof. troops..and results from US military
show that women consistently fall short of qualifying.
Horse archery won't require strength as much. Sure a bow requires strength but having shot with women it's something they can accustome to like men if it's a part of life
This is why steppe tribes have more female warriors than most normal empires. The younger women who don't need to watch kids have the skills (horse riding and archery) like men from every day life and the required strength isnt as much a necessity if you don't participate in melee combat.
Additionally worth noting that societies that did allow female warriors seemingly had them at rather lower amounts than men. For instance Norse let women raid but the army is still going to be OVERWHELMINGLY men. And some of the merc groups they form state that they'll only take a women if she shows outstanding prowess. So women warriors for steppe tribes happened but probably wasnt 1:1 with men. In fact I've read it's around 1/3 of all kurgan cheiftan are for women. That's just cheiftan so maybe 1/30 warriors might be a woman. Maybe less and that doesn't mean they were absolutely warriors. They also (per Herodotus I believe) stopped fighting after having children so you'd see more men as they would be from any age and the women would only be younger
My pronunciation of "Scythian" is the same as yours. l dont like the sound "sissyian". lmao.
Anyway what does 'Scythian' mean? In Sumerian-Scythian-Hun language you say 'the Scythian' this way ' A Szkíta'. Pronnounce it A Skeeta. It means 'Ascet'. In Sumer at a moment happened a division of the population. Those religious ascet types went to the north, then moved to the northern steppes of Asia. The hedonist ones stayed on the shores of the southern parts. They were called Part-hians or Parts-Pers-Persians. Parthians and Persians are the same damn thing.
I thought Parthians and Persians were two different but closely related ethnic groups. I did not know they were the same
@@user-dx6bv2pe1s It's the 'official' history.
What are you smoking lol? Sumerian, Schytian, and Hunic are three completely unrelated languages. And the root for Schytian is "shooter" -> archer not ascetic.
Ancient Greek Skuthēs (lit. "shooters", same root) from proto-schytian Skuδatā, "archers."
Also Parthian and Persian have completely different etymologies/origins.
Persian comes from Proto-Iranian *párcuš, "rib or possibly paraśu, “hatchet, axe”.
Parthian comes from Proto-Iranian *pr̥θwíH, "area" or *Parārθavaʰ, "foreigner" / "from far away".
Parthians and Persians are not "the same damn thing" they were two closely related but distinct groups of people.
@@faarsight Well, can't have a younger culture, like the Greek, to explain what an older culture's, like the Scythian's, words mean. You have your opinion, but for me is just hilarious. Knowledge does not mean to repeat like a parrot the official historical data.
“Urphilas19 brought over as settlers to the Roman territory a large body of persons who had been driven out of their ancient abodes for the sake of their religion. These came from among the Scythians, north of the Ister, and were formerly called Getae, though now they are better known as Goths.” -Phil. E.H. II.5.
So we can surmise based on enough evidence that warrior women existed. While cool in and of itself, what is the point of knowing this?
Having knowledge just to have it?
Or is there something to be said about women in combat arms branches of militaries today?
Most of history is knowledge for its own sake. Given that warrior women are an anomaly it is interesting to see the cases where they appear and why.
Women are objectively inferior soldiers given the differences between males and females, which shouldn't be seen as sexist because it's not denigrating, it's just a fact. If women were physically equal to men, there wouldn't exist women's sports leagues because they'd be able to compete in men's leagues (many of which do allow women to compete but no woman is able).
The point is to expand our knowledge and understanding of our ancestors in the circumstances of their time and to maybe adapt and apply in our time.
On the social political side, it is simply a memory of times different than ours, that we now have less of a need to separate the roles of sexes, and our the realisation of efficiency in simply giving the right to choose, without prejudice, be equal to both sexes to improve our output in progress
in other words; what archaeological evidence do we have for a none too strict patriarchal societies where women could do what they wanted to.. For me the Question ins't, did warrior women exist, for me the interesting question is; why did so few other ancient societies not allow women to be warriors if they so wanted to.
makes it real hard to repopulate with women being killed in battle.
@@cal2127 thats it?, really.. I had hope for a bit more engagement than that, but ok..
I did end with "if they so wanted to". which could mean after they had their first two children early, which happened often in ancient times, or it could be the 3 daughter of a low-ranked but still well off nobles daughter, why couldnt she be allowed warrior training if that was her own desire, even if just for a "back-up" plan if he and the heir should be killed and only the women were left to defend themselves...
@@gawkthimm6030 Keep in mind, ancient (as in pre 1900) child mortality was pushing 50%. That meant 6 childbirths to get this free-wheeling 3rd child of age that could do whatever she wanted. Even if that third kid was male, they'd be hard-pressed to be allowed to do whatever they wanted. To understand what @cal2127 said without some kneejerk reaction to it, I suggest doing a simulation-game with playing cards. Pick black as male, red as female (or vise versa). Deal yourself a hand of six. Blindly drop 3. Of the three remaining, we can play various 'what if' games. You can simulate the 'traditional civilized society' that sends the eldest black card out to war. Roll a dice on whether that black card returns. Deal yourself another hand and do the same. Then see how many procreational pairings you can make from the two hands. Then with each pair, set them aside as the parents, deal another 6 cards... but this time, each card dealt, roll a dice for maternal mortality (est 2.5%). Repeat, a few hands and see how well this 'society' survives. Now with that as a unidealized baseline, you can try your hand at various other what-ifs. What if the red card is sent to war. What if it's a toss up of whomever is eldest irrespective of color. Then we get creative by taking out the black parent and sending him to war. Can another black card take its place without too much disruption? How about sending the red parent card to war? Can another red card take its place without disruption? Fascinating times.
i think it has a lot to do with control of money since warriors used to have to buy their own weapons so the women would first have to have their own money. secondly there would have to be the necessity. in the greek cities their would be neither of these things as women often didnt have access to money and their society usually had access to enough personnel to keep the status quo. however in the more tribalistic steppe people operating in smaller groups they might have been a real need to have women be able to fight.
Women were never allowed to be soldiers in that sense (they are in most contexts not nearly as suitable as men). In warrior cultures they would just put down the children and pick up the sword is the survival of the wider group was under existential threat (as in migrations or when defending settlements).
Women soldiers was an item of curiosity and derision exactly because it was such an abnormality.
Clearly the Amazons were Turkic people with little admixture amongst other people, the men and women appeared the same as the men did not grow facial hair, both wore hair the same, looked indistinguishable to the nascent outside observers who started the myth, the story then was amalgamated with other bits and pieces of accounts and turned into a fable of sorts.
Nothing to do withe turk. Saka inscription is iranic. Now offizoiel proven. Sakas had a lot of turcik eastasien mtd dna.
@thoirdhomhfiosrachadh I was clearly stating the original "Unmixed" people started the myth, your answer adds proof to it, as you describe the admixture. I'm talking about myth, it clearly derives from a Turkic people, not "the turk" whatever that relates to.
@@MultimediaIreland No. It is iranic. The Turkic people was the minority in the east.
@@MultimediaIreland
It's Clear that they Has nothing to do with Turks
The Hausa empire was essentially built on its elite cavalry. Its ALL FEMALE elite cavalry.
The Order of the Hatchet. Knightly order created in honor of the women who routed the besieging force of a city. The ladies of the city became enraged when the men wanted to surrender, so they geared up and rode out and shredded the siege.
Anyone who thinks you can just armor up and jump into the saddle and go charging into a melee and do anything without THOROUGH training is delusional.
Shaka Zulu's teacher in warfare and arms was his mother. Who just happened to be the commander of an all-female regiment.
Aside from the female-only Order of the hatchet, there were at least TWO more European knightly orders that knighted females as warriors.
Any European nunnery/all female monastery, their guards were usually all female warriors.
The vast majority of daughters of nobility in medieval times had training with at least 1 weapon and often some training in warfare because they were assumed to take over the needs of defending the home if the husband was away. This was also considered a major plus when negotiating marriages, as a martially welltrained lady of the castle meant that a castellan might not be needed at all, or could marsch out with the lord.
Old Japan had similar views, though at once both more limited, yet also more open for women to openly marsch out into warfare.
Mulan IS based on a true story. And the Vietnam uprising of the Trungh sisters is on the epic side.
When a modern forensic specialist by random chance(other reason) was asked to go through Viking warrior remains from graves in UK, they found that at least 1/5th and possibly as much as many as 1/3 were women.
When a USCW veteran died and was very surprisingly found to be female, it inspired a group to try to investigate if this was a one-off or not, they had extreme problems getting reliable information, often having to resort to county demographical data and other similar indirect approaches to get anywhere, but in the end their conclusion was that this was NOT a rare thing, that it was highly likely that the minimum number of USCW soldiers that were females in disguise were at least 1% and could be as much as over 5%.
WWII, one of the epic Soviet female heroes... A nurse who was taking a load of injured to a hospital were unlucky with the frontline movements and got captured. 48 hours later however, the nurse had killed the entire German platoon that captured them and gotten the injured under her care back behind Soviet lines.
Night witches. Enough said.
And so on and so on.
Anyone who claims they were not real, simply doesn't know what they're talking about.
Yes, thank you for your mention of Africa. Well known female warriors and armies throughout history including the wars for independence. Entire nations founded by women and regions governed and run by women.
Patriarchy often extolls itself in narrative and belief alone.
according to documentation that part is pure mythology
mythology is pure invention, an Olympus or a Valhalla or a Thor or a Venus do not exist and never have existed
Well, the word 'Amazon' has a meaning only in Scythian - Hun language. Write it in google translate in a, let's say, our day's Scythian language, the Hungarian. Try it without the suffix 'on', what literally means 'on'.
Scythians almost certainly spoke an Indo-Iranian language. That is not related to Hungarian which is a Uralic language. No one knows what language family Hunnic belongs to, but it couldn't be related to both Hungarian and Scythian.
@@davidharrison7072Where did they went to the Urals? From north of Sumer. From the Turan region of Iran. Who is their mythical ancestor? Nemrud. So...
Saka inscription is now offiziel prov iranic.
@@thoirdhomhfiosrachadh Well, thank you. That's where the Scythians came from.
I smell pan turanist nonsense.