Scytho-Amazonian Possibilities

"The role of women and family is largely a mystery. A tale passed on by Herodotus recounted how a marauding band of Amazons clashed repeatedly with a Scythian contingent near the Sea of Azov. Discovering their foes were female, the Scythians dispatched their most virile young horsemen to make love, not war. The goal, according to Herodotus, was to breed new warriors. The women were easily seduced but not so easily domesticated. Rebuffing the Scythians' marriage proposals, the Amazons explained: `We are riders; our business is with the bow and the spear...but in your country...women stay at home in their wagons occupied with feminine tasks, and never go out to hunt, or for any other purpose.' Ultimately, Herodotus reported, the two groups rode off together and founded their own tribe. The women continued to dress as men and to hunt and fight. Although Herodotus' tale has long been taken as fiction, archaeologists in recent years have found the remains of a number of heavily armed Scythian women. Their weapons could be ceremonial, yet the graves are numerous enough, writes Esther Jacobson of the University of Oregon, a leading expert on Scythian art, `to allow one to conclude that there was in Scythian society a place for women to take up a warrior's role.'" - Smithsonian, March 2000 v30 i12 p89.