The Real Amazons | Hacker News Reader

The Real Amazons

newyorker.com

55 pointsdiodorus7 comments

The knights in the movie 'King Arthur' (with Clive Owen and Keira Knightley) are Sarmatian knights. Without respect to Amazons and the women, it seems the movies somewhat accurately represents the knights.

about the equalizing role of technology (well, horse and bow was the technology back then :)

"But, on the steppe, “the horse was the great equalizer, along with the bow and arrow, which meant that a woman could be just as fast, just as deadly, as a man,” "

Seems like a lot of wishful thinking and projection of current ideology, a la Margaret Mead in "Coming of Age in Samoa" of which she later admitted she fabricated much.

"of which she later admitted she fabricated much."

That is stunningly inaccurate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Mead

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_Age_in_Samoa

At most there is a wildly controversial claim from another anthropologist that Mead's subjects told her fabrications.

They found female skeletons buried with daggers and bow and arrows; what do you want? An encrypted hard disk with fighting video from 2000 years ago?

Face it Zena was REAL

Yea someone said historical analysis says more about the culture doing the analysis.

The article spins Amazons as an equal society of men and women, where the Greek stories strongly imply the men were subordinate. And it could make sense with certain cavalry tactics, a lighter rider could be more effective and so hold higher social status.

As far as horse and bow being equalizers, when the Mongols came up with their fancy bows, they took a lot of strength to pull. And they defeated other horse archer armies in their way.

If military considerations made the Amazon women superior or equal it didn't last. Persian horse archers were male. Mongol women mostly guarded the camp. These cultures lasted longer.

And Viking shield maidens fought as infantry. They ended the practice around the time they adopted Christianity.

That's a nice article. I found the style good, the content interesting.

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