Amazonians: Who were they?
Simon Edwards
In Age of Mythology there is a God called Hera who is an Amazon and a
Heroine (called Hippolatus?) who is Queen of the Amazons, but both live in
the Greek Civilisation. Now, I *know* this is only a PC game and based on
mythology and not real history, but I (and my 8 yr old son!) would love to
know what is the link between the Ancient Greeks and the Amazonians?
A few options are obvious:
1) Somehow South America and Athens were linked by trade routes? Not my
memory of the ancient Greeks
2) 'Amazon' is Greek/Latin for "really big" something and got re-used by
European conquerors when they bumped into the Amazon river?
3) Its a coincidence!
4) Ensemble/Microsoft took a lot of a liberty when they spec'd out the
background history for AoM
Your thoughts would appreciated.
BTW this sort of history strategy game is great for getting a young mind
interested in history. He started off with AoE, then AoE2, then Settlers.
All great. Now with school doing Greek history he knows ALOT more than me!!!
Thanks
Simon
Kurt Lauwereyns
of the Black Sea (according to Greek mythology). They were ruled by a queen
and from the girls the right bosom was burned away, so they could handle the
bow better. Etymologycally amazon means : a =no; mazos = breast. During the
Trojan war they helped Troy under the leadership of their queen Penthesilea,
who was killed by Achilles. The link with the Amazon-river is for me not
clear.
Regards.
"Simon Edwards" <random...@ntlworld.com> schreef in bericht
news:3i%za.954$Zp1...@newsfep1-gui.server.ntli.net...
Random Tandem
Thanks Kurt
Simon
"Kurt Lauwereyns" <kurt.la...@skynet.be> wrote in message
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Infowolf1
>The Amazons were a people of wariorlike women that lived at the south-coast
>of the Black Sea (according to Greek mythology). They were ruled by a queen
>and from the girls the right bosom was burned away, so they could handle the
>bow better. Etymologycally amazon means : a =no; mazos = breast.'
This etymology assumes that the Greek interpretation of their
name into Greek language equivalent is correct. No ancient
art (or almost none in case I missed some) shows them so
deformed.
More likely their name was "aih-ma-zaghh" "noble ones," the
Imazag name the Berbers of Morocco have for themselves.
Diodorus Siculus describes two sets of Amazon peoples, one
from North Africa who made it to northern Anatolia, and
the later bunch we all heard of and says they are not the same.
More likely, the latter bunch are descended from the
failed occupation by the former.
>.... The link with the Amazon-river is for me not
>clear.
Amazon became a popular designation for any tomboy typ[e
or woman warrior. So when some such were encountered
among Indians in South America they were called Amazons
and the river named after them (actually the original account indicates
they lived up a tributary of the River Amazon, I think in the
area now called Guyana, or one of the Guyanas.) A particular
group of woman warriors got explorer attention as similar
to the Old World Amazons because not only were they warriors
but lived separately from men, while in a few tribes women were
warriors as part of their shared duo-sexual culture.
This did not mean they were nicey nice equallitarian peoples.
The name Cannibal comes from Carib or Arawak, whose warriors
of both sexes captured slaves who were eaten or kept for
breeding (the females) to make babies to be eaten as tender delicacies.
Rod Dorman
Random Tandem <random...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>I don't think I'll share the 'burned away' bit with my 8 yr old son :-)
Wny not? I'm sure it would be less traumatic that explaining what a
eunuch is :-)
--
-- Rod --
rodd(at)polylogics(dot)com