For a long time, modern scholars believed that the Amazons were little more than a figment of ancient imaginations.
But a growing body of archaeological evidence shows that legends about the horseback-riding, bow-wielding female fighters were almost certainly rooted in reality. Myths about the Amazons’ homosexuality and self-mutilation are still dubious at best, but new research appears to confirm that there really were groups of nomadic women who trained, hunted and battled alongside their male counterparts in the Eurasian steppe.
The discovery represents some of the most detailed evidence to date that female warriors weren’t just the stuff of ancient fiction, according to Adrienne Mayor, author of The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. We have proof that those women did exist and that the lives of those women warriors really did influence the Ancient Greek ideas and visions of what they said about the Amazons
“This was an egalitarian society,” Mayor told The Washington Post on Tuesday. “The fact that you have a range of ages is important because people previously thought that mothers wouldn’t be out fighting because they had children.” Valerii Guliaev, who led the expedition, called it a “unique find,” and said it underscored how women and men received equal treatment in Scythian society.