A while back I was watching on the history channel about a race of female warriors who would have their right breast removed in order to get a better shot with their bow. I forget what era, or location though . Does this ring a bell to anyone? If so could you show me where to find more information?

The image that says with most people is that of single-breasted women. Sounds like a shocker doesn't it? But a recent survey indicated that single-breasted women with a quiver of arrows slung on their shoulders epitomize the women warriors of the Amazon. According to myth, the Amazons were an all-female society of fierce warriors who supposedly lived in the area north of the Black Sea about 700 years before the fifth century BC. Supposedly they cut off one breast to make shooting a bow and arrow easier. But this has never been proved even in the myths. The word Amazon itself has some connotation with breasts.


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

Thanks! That's exactly what I was looking for .

glad to help

EmpressStarXVII:

Archaeologists have found the graves of women in the Black Sea region that contained warlike implements and trinkets that one would normally associate with high office in ancient societies. Odds are, this is what gave rise to the legends and myths of the Amazon Nation.

Personally, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if, somewhere in our ancient past, there were matriarchal societies where women held positions of leadership and fought for their tribes. Heck, you see it quite often in the animal kingdom where females are the leaders (take pachyderms, for example). We live in a mostly patriarchal world nowadays, so it's hard to envision a world where, maybe, there was more of a mix of governing styles. But, as I said, I wouldn't be surprised if the mythical Amazon Nation — or a knock-off thereof — is proven to contain at least a core of fact.

Womyn power!

Sentinel

Well, according to the ever handy wikipedia..

"...The Amazons ... were an ancient nation of female warriors or a society dominated by women, at the edges of Scythia in Sarmatia (Herodotus). The histories and legends in Greek mythology appear to have a factual basis in warrior women among the Sarmatians...."

Full article here,

Artemis/goddess of Wilderness

in case you'd like to know
Temple of artemis is in Izmir/Turkey

http://www.oeai.at/eng/ausland/ephesos.html

This is meant to show a young greek solder conversing with an amazon, who here is depicted as young, beautiful and physically in her prime....

I got this picture from here if you would like more info etc...

The grave of a female gladiator found in london.

http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/aol/redir?src=e...tion=WebResults

In Celtic cultures, the women were trained with weapons also. I don't find it abnormal for women in history to be considered warriors-who protected the home front while the males were out hunting or fighting wars?

Right. I posted this because on another forum, a guy was saying that a woman has no place in the battlefield due to the fact that we are not 'as strong' as males. Yet throughout history there were many incidents where women were fearless warriors. Though I highly doubt the future will look back at our civilization and look at female soldiers the same way.

I guess we just have to chalk it up to 'male mentality' ( and this is not a dig at males, I know a lot of them who appreciate that women can do/have done a lot of things that men can). They just don't want to read their history and realize that a well trained warrior is a warrior, no matter what sex they are.

don't forget Queen Boudicca

The woman who every man fears ~~~

To my mind, they were Amazons, and probably were the same ones featured in the Heracles (or Hercules or whatever) legend, and were possibly located somewhere in the Russian Steppes. This is going from memory of an old Greek Mythology book, so don't quote me

If my memory serves me right, wives of samurai (who were also considered samurai) were also trained in the art of swordplay in order to protect their homes in feudal Japan.

Ancient & not so ancient women warriors...
Majaji
Sarah Winnemucca (1844–1891)

I think that belief is grounded in American society not wanting women to die. If a hundred men were to die in a battle, people would lament their loss, but if one woman is killed, it is a big deal. This is often reinforced by the Media to get higher ratings. If the US public is to get stirred up about something then usually women and children are shown to be victims.

Physically women have better hand-eye coordination and better overall health, so they would make better soldiers in a high tech army. This is reflected by increasing numbers of women in fighter planes and helocopters.

Ancient Women Warriors
Ancient queens and other women who led their people into battle: Amazons, Queen Artemisia, Queen Boudicca, Queen Samsi, Queen Tomyris, Trung Sisters, Queen Zenobia.
Related Resources
• Review Warrior Women
• Ancient Women
• Weapons and Warfare
• Warrior Women

From Other Guides
• Archaeology Guide Review Warrior Women
• Womens History Guest Review Warrior Women
• Joan of Arc
• Womens History Guide Military and War
• Artemisia
• Boudicca
• Cartimandua
• Semiramis
• Trung Sisters
• Zenobia

Throughout history, women warriors have fought and led troops into battle. This partial list of warrior queens and other women warriors runs from the legendary Amazons -- who may have been real warriors from the Steppes -- to the Syrian queen of Palmyra, Zenobia. Sadly, we know too little about most of these brave warrior women who stood up to the powerful male leaders of their day because history is written by the victors.
Amazons
The Amazons are credited with helping the Trojans against the Greeks in the Trojan War. They are also said to have been fierce women archers who cut off a breast to aid them in shooting, but recent archaeological evidence suggests the Amazons were real, important, powerful, two-breasted, warrior women, possibly from the Steppes.

• Amazons

Queen Tomyris
Tomyris became queen of the Massegetai upon the death of her husband. Cyrus of Persia wanted her kingdom and offered to marry her for it, but she declined, so, of course, they fought each other, instead. Cyrus tricked the section of Tomyris' army led by her son, who was taken prisoner and committed suicide. Then the army of Tomyris ranged itself against the Persians, defeated it, and killed King Cyrus.

• Tomyris
• King Cyrus of Persia

Queen Artemisia
Artemisia, queen of Herodotus' homeland of Halicarnassus, gained renown for her brave, manly actions in the Greco-Persian Wars' Battle of Salamis. Artemisia was a member of the Persian Great King Xerxes' multi-national invading force.

• Artemisia of Halicarnassus
• PBS Artemisia - Warrior Queen of Halicarnassus

Queen Boudicca
When her husband Prasutagus died, Boudicca became queen of the Iceni in Britain. For several months during A.D. 60-61 she led the Iceni in revolt against the Romans in response to their treatment of her and her daughters. She burned three major Roman towns, Londinium (London), Verulamium (St. Albans), and Camulodunum (Colchester). In the end, the Roman military governor Suetonius Paullinus suppressed the revolt.

• Boudicca
• Boudicca, Queen of the Iceni

Queen Zenobia
Third century queen of Palmyra (in modern Syria), Zenobia claimed Cleopatra as ancestor. Zenobia started as a regent for her son, but then claimed the throne, defying the Romans, and rode into battle against them. She was eventually defeated by Aurelian and probably taken prisoner.

• Zenobia of Palmyra

Queen Samsi
In 732 B.C. Queen Samsi (Shamsi) of Arabia rebelled against Assyrian King Tiglath Pileser III (745 - 727 B.C.) by refusing to pay tribute and perhaps by giving aid to an unsuccessful fight against Assyria by the king of Damascus. The Assyrian king captured her cities and she was forced to flee to the desert where thirst/starvation got the best of her. She surrendered and was forced to pay tribute to the king. Although an officer of Tiglath Pileser III was stationed at her court, Samsi was allowed to continue to rule. 17 years later, she was still sending tribute to Sargon II.

• Tiglath Pileser
• A Short History of the Tribes of Ancient North Arabia
• Women as Warriors in Prehistory, the Ancient World and up to the 7th Century outside Europe
• "Pre-Islamic Arab Queens," by Nabia Abbott. The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, Vol. 58, No. 1. (Jan., 1941), pp. 1-22.

Trung Sisters
After two centuries of Chinese rule, the Vietnamese rose up against them under the leadership of two sisters, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, who gathered an army of 80,000. They trained 36 women to be generals and drove the Chinese out of Viet Nam in A.D. 40. Trung Trac was then named ruler and renamed "Trung Vuong" or "She-king Trung." They continued to fight the Chinese for three years, but eventually, unsuccessful, they committed suicide.

The URL for this feature is
http://ancienthistory.about.com/library/weekly/aa032703a.htm

Jeannine Davis-Kimball with Mona Behan. 2002. Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines. Warner Books, New York, New York.
Jeannine Davis-Kimball is the founder and executive director of the Centre for the Study of Eurasian Nomads and the American-Eurasian Research Institute at the University of California, Berkeley. Her archaeological investigations into Sarmatian and Sauromatian burial mounds (called kurgans) in the former Soviet Union republic of Kazakhstan led her to investigate the role of women in Iron Age societies. This book is a direct outgrowth of her research.

While primarily focused on the archaeological evidence for women acting as warriors and priestesses during eastern European Iron Age, the book is a fusion of archaeology and ethnography, mythology, and history, in a compelling report of Davis-Kimball's search for similar themes for women in Greece, Turkey, Ireland and China. Ultimately, the book is a story of the glimmers of women's hidden history, including more than a bit of autobiography, as Davis-Kimball travels around the world, looking at mummies, talking to researchers, and suffering the agonies of fieldwork.

Review:
Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines
by Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball with Mona Behan
Warner Books - 2002
(compare prices)

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that a hero is no braver than an ordinary person, but they are braver for five minutes longer. At a time when we are thinking about the heroic women affected by the terrorist acts of September 11th, this is a good read about the search for the history of those earlier brave women known as the Amazons.

Dr. Davis-Kimball is an archaeologist who has worked with burial mounds in Eurasia, Western Chinese deserts and Ireland. In these mounds there are items believed to be needed in the next life. It was expected to be very much like this one.

Such items reveal details about burial, fertility and warrior rites. They have established the actual existence of women previously thought to be only legendary -- the Amazons.

Before you yawn at the idea of a small print, footnote-choked academic tome, consider this: It is finely laid out, well edited and includes both an excellent glossary and index. Better yet, four great stories are told here in less than 250 pages.

There is one telling how women warrior legends are rooted in reality, one about how archeologists really do their work, another about how women in that field have struggled for recognition and finally, the author's own personal struggle to become the woman she is today.

As a result, you get this wonderous Celtic knot of a tale that demands full attention from start to finish.

Some examples: I learned a lot about assumptions made earlier concerning male and female roles when items were found in mounds. One earlier assumption was that when a weapon was found the skelton near it had to be male.

I learned how the high, triangular power-headdresses of warrior/priestesses became the bad witches' hats that have devolved into Halloween costume fame.

This book includes the differences between vertical and horizontal migrations. One is up and down mountains. The other is back and forth across steppes.

There is a story about why finding precious metals in a burial mound is bad news because of security concerns and the likelihood that current governments will melt down ancient items for funds. Part of that story involves Stalin, the Cold War and the Taliban.

She gives an overall picture of how early women warriors -- the real Amazons -- were involved in all parts of nomadic culture, including the defense of their community. That egalitarian participation is the same today for the same peoples.

A year after seeing the bravery of women in the air and on the ground during and after the attacks of September 11th, this is the book to read for the historical precedent of such actions.

A user-contributed article by Rev. Rus Cooper-Dowda

Warrior Women: An Archaeologist's Search for History's Hidden Heroines
by Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball with Mona Behan
Warner Books - 2002

Woman Warriors - that is, in the sense that there was an organized group of female warriors -tend to be much, much less common than situations in which a woman ends up commanding an army (such as Eleanor of Aquitaine). Although the reasons are complicated, part of it no doubt comes from the fact that in many agrarian societies, women were kept pregnant and incapacitated from most hard labor a significant part of the time (if I remember right, a study was actually done in which women in hunter-gatherer societies had children on average four years apart, whereas agrarian women had them two years apart). Plus there's the fact that humans are sexually dimorphic (meaning one sex is larger than the other) in favor of males, who assumed a hunting role in the hunter-gathering societies that constituted much of human history.

About warrior women:

Countess Matilda of Canossa (Matilda di Canossa), also known as Matilda of Tuscany.

here is a line....it seem she acted like Jean d'arch, against Henry IV of Germany.

In 1095, Henry attempted to reverse his fortunes by seizing Matilda's castle of Nogara, but the countess's arrival at the head of an army forced him to retreat. In 1097, Henry withdrew from Italy altogether, after which Matilda reigned virtually uncontested, although she did continue to launch military operations designed to restore her authority and regain control of the towns that had remained loyal to the emperor. She ordered or commanded successful expeditions against Ferrara (1101), Parma (1104), Prato (1107) and Mantua (1114). In 1111, at Bianello, she was made viceroy of Liguria by the Emperor Henry V.

Matilda's death of gout in 1115 at Bondeno di Rocore marked the end of an era in Italian politics. She left her allodial property to the Pope for reasons not known. Henry had promised some of the cities in her territory he would appoint no successor after he deposed her. In her place the leading citizens of these cities took control, and we enter the era of the city-states in northern Italy.

In the 17th century her body was removed to the Vatican, where it now lies in St. Peter's Basilica.

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

Women on the whole are not as physically strong as men. Men are bigger and stronger. It's just a fact. Of course, that being said has NOTHING to do with whether or not a woman would be a warrior. As many have cited, women can be as fierce and as determined as anyone, and history has proven it.

Who were the Amazons? Were They Man-Haters Who Cut Off One Breast?
Women warriors whom we might call Amazons did exist, but were they the legendary equestrian band of man-hating archers with partial mastectomies? Were they the same as the Amazons Herodotus describes? Kathy Sawyer, in Were Amazons More than Myths?, an article from the July 31, 1997 Salt Lake Tribune, suggests "the notion of such women ... [who] replenished their numbers by mating with men from other tribes, keeping the daughters and killing male infants ... sprang from ... an imaginative impulse in the male-dominated Greek society ...." But Germanic tribes had women warriors and Mongol families accompanied the armies of Genghis Khan, so the presence of women warriors was well attested even before Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball "spent five years excavating more than 150 burial mounds of 5th century B.C.


Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball and The Center for the Study of the Eurasian Nomads (CSEN) provide information on the excavations of Sauromatian and Sarmatian Women in Davis-Kimball's Warrior Women. Among other evidence supporting the existence of Amazons in the area around the Steppes between Russia and Kazakhstan, they found skeletons of women warriors with weapons. Supporting the unusual society in which the women warriors lived, the excavators found no children buried beside the women, although they did find them beside the men. Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball conjectures that women functioned as rulers, priestesses, warriors, and domestics in this nomadic society.

In Return of the 50-foot Women, "Salon Magazine" interviews Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball who says the primary occupation of these matriarchal women was probably not "to run out and start slashing and burning," but to take care of their animals. Wars were fought to protect territory. Asked "Does post-feminist, late-20th century society have anything to learn from what you've found?" she answers that the idea that women stayed home to tend the children is not a universal and that there have been women in control for a very long time.

As to the identity of the women warriors Herodotus described and the ones recently excavated, Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball says they were probably not the same. The idea, mentioned in Strabo, that the Amazons were one-breasted makes little sense in light of the many fine two-breasted women archers. Artwork also shows the Amazons with two breasts.



Herodotus on the Amazons
The Story of the Amazons settling with the Scythians: The Amazons (also called oiropatas -- man-killers) were taken captive by the Greeks and put on board ship where they murdered the crew. However, the Amazons didn't know how to sail so they floundered until they landed by the cliffs of the Scythians. There they took horses and fought the people. When the Scythians figured out that the warriors they were fighting were women, they resolved to impregnate them and schemed accordingly. The Amazons didn't resist, but encouraged the process which was complicated by a language barrier. In time, the men wished the women to become their wives, but the Amazons, knowing that they couldn't live within the Scythian patriarchy insisted the men leave their native land. The men obliged and a new land was set up. These people became the SAUROMATAE who spoke a version of Scythian adapted by the Amazons.
- Herodotus Histories 4.110.1-117.1

The mythological heroes who fought and conquered the Amazons.

"For a particular society the Amazon becomes the Other, the being upon whom are projected all of the society's doubts, fears and prejudices; the Amazon is the exact opposite of what a proper woman should be, her culture is the unnatural opposite of the natural order."
Amazons

""The simultaneous existence of nomadic warrior women and subjugated Athenian housewives suggests that two thousand years ago, relations between the sexes varied enormously from one population to the next."
Source: www.linguafranca.com/9712/ nosborne.html Lingua Franca 08/24/98

During the Trojan War (most familiar from the "Iliad" of Homer) and the homecoming of Odysseus (familiar from Homer's "Odyssey") Penelope remained at home in Ithaca without an adult male to defend the homestead.

Penelope's home was thrown into turmoil -- but it took 20 years. For twenty years Penelope, the wife of Odysseus and his presumed widow, supplied family, retainers, and suitors with food. Clearly, women of the Homeric world were competent. Not only were they efficient, but they held political power, or at least the key to it. It may have only been because control over the throne of Ithaca was at least partially matrilinear, that ambitious suitors needed to marry Penelope to gain control of her land.

This was the world of the heroes Achilles, Hercules and Theseus, and the legendary Amazons, their brave, noble, worthy, and female adversaries.

Achilles and Penthesilea
While the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" have survived, they were only part of the Epic Cycle. After Homer, Arktinos of Miletos (fl. 776 B.C.) wrote the "Aithiopis" as a direct sequel to the "Iliad." It is best known for its opening scene in which Penthesilea and her Amazons come to the aid of the Trojans after the death of Hector. Achilles kills the queen, then mourns for her. When Thersites makes fun of him for this, Achilles slays him, too. Only fragments remain of "Aithiopus," but Quintus of Smyrna is thought to have re-written Arktinos' poems.

So peerless amid all the Amazons Unto
Troy-town Penthesileia came.
To right, to left, from all sides hurrying thronged
The Trojans, greatly marvelling, when they saw
The tireless War-god's child, the mailed maid,
Like to the Blessed Gods;
I.61-66

They fall not short of men in anything
I.621

So that death-ravening spear of Peleus' son
Clear through the goodly steed rushed on, and pierced
Penthesileia. Straightway fell she down
Into the dust of earth, the arms of death,
In grace and comeliness fell, for naught of shame
Dishonoured her fair form.
I.843-88
From The Fall of Troy, by Quintus Smyrnaeus (fl. mid 4th C A.D.).

A Handbook of Greek Literature, by H. J. Rose.
Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica: An Introduction

Hercules and Hippolyte
The most famililar Amazon story is the Ninth Labor of Hercules. Hercules has been commanded by Eurystheus to fetch for his daughter the girdle (or belt) of the Amazon Queen, Hippolyte. This wouldn't be a problem, even though it was a gift to her from the war god, Ares, because she is willing to oblige, but Hercules' nemesis, Hera, tries to thwart her hated step-son. She makes the Amazons suspicious enough to attack Hercules' men. In the end, Hercules kills the Amazon Queen and takes the belt.

"Having put in at the harbour of Themiscyra, he received a visit from Hippolyte, who inquired why he was come, and promised to give him the belt. But Hera in the likeness of an Amazon went up and down the multitude saying that the strangers who had arrived were carrying off the queen. So the Amazons in arms charged on horseback down on the ship. But when Hercules saw them in arms, he suspected treachery, and killing Hippolyte stripped her of her belt."
- Apollodorus Library II.v.4

"[5.11.4] On the other rods is the band that with Heracles fights against the Amazons. The number of figures in the two parties is twenty-nine, and Theseus too is ranged among the allies of Heracles."
- The Abridged Version of Pausanias

Bellerophon
Stheneboea or Antea is the proverbial woman scorned. Pretending that Bellerophon tried to seduce her, she persuades her husband Proetus to get rid of Bellerophon. Sent to the father-in-law of Proteus with a hostile letter of introduction, Bellerophon undergoes a series of nearly impossible tasks in order to redeem himself. After slaying the Chimaera and fighting the Solymi, Bellerophon's third task is to fight the Amazons. In the end, he wins the favor of the king and the hand of his daughter.

"Thirdly, he killed the Amazons, women who were the peers of men, and as he was returning thence the king devised yet another plan for his destruction...."
- Iliad VI

"After that contest Iobates ordered him to fight the Solymi, and when he had finished that task also, he commanded him to combat the Amazons, And when he had killed them also...."
- Apollodorus Library II.iii.2

Theseus and Antiope, Melanipe, or Hippolyte
Achilles mourns, Hercules reaches an agreement with Hippolyte (before Hera steps in), and Bellerophon fights as he has been ordered, but Theseus' relationship with the Amazons shows little honor (in a modern sense) or respect. Granted, there are extenuating circumstances, an attack by the Amazons and a threat, but in the first place, it's a provoked attack and in the second, relegation to second fiddle in the harem had not been part of the bargain.

Of course, Theseus isn't playing by modern standards. For the [www.usask.ca/classics/CourseNotes/] shame culture in which he operates, it isn't fairness, but public acknowledgement of his superiority that matters.

"Theseus joined Hercules in his expedition against the Amazons and carried off Antiope, or, as some say, Melanippe, but Simonides calls her Hippolyte.
Sponsored Links


Wherefore the Amazons marched against Athens, and having taken up a position about the Areopagus, they were vanquished by the Athenians under Theseus. And though he had a son Hippolytus by the Amazon, Theseus afterwards received from Deucalion in marriage Phaedra, daughter of Minos; and when her marriage was being celebrated, the Amazon that had before been married to him appeared in arms with her Amazons, and threatened to kill the assembled guests. But they hastily closed the doors and killed her. However, some say that she was slain in battle by Theseus."
- Apollodorus Epitome I.16



" Now, that's completely and utterly unfair. First off the attack wasn't provoked, marriage for love/lust and marriage for political motivations are two entirely different things. If, first off, you are willing to be part of a "harem" (as you put it) then you can't complain when your husband has a new favorite. Secondly, if she was really "carried off" it wasn't against her will. Theseus was a hero and powerful, but so were the amazons. No amazon would ever let a man carry her off, she'd die first. It goes against their nature. You can see that in the ninth labor of Heracles, had it been any amazon that was being taken their would've been a war party, the amazons didn't need much provocation to fight, especially fighting men.
I find your use of the term "shame culture" amusing, when in Amazon's 1, you describe how women were capable and efficient, and capable of either wielding or holding the keys to political power. Well holding the keys is having the power to give thsoe keys away, and that's power indeed, so how can his culture be a shame culture? The only shameful thing about their greeks really, was their love for little boys (and that's bad).
Further, Theseus was acting in a modern fashion. It was the height of being modern and fashionable... in BC Athens anyways. While he may not have made her wife number 1 that's hardly any reason to have and threaten death. He was king, and by law he was allowed to have multiple wives, indeed it was often necessary. I.E. if you make your neighbor's daughter your wife, he will be more kindly diposed towards you and your nation. That's a trading partner and way to avoid war, not to mention a potential stake in his throne.
Now maybe the amazon (I choose not to name her because there are three possible names and I've no idea which is really the correct one, though I bank on Hippolyte) didn't understand fuedal politics, but I doubt it. The amazons had rulers and had existed for sometime, no doubt they had some idea of how the world works. No doubt, had Hippolyte not liked the "shame" society she was in, she would have Theseus make some changes while she was still the favorite (that whole holding the keys thing again). So I'm just really not sure where you get that (the site you listed has changed it's layout so I can't find what you speaking about).
Now if you want to talk about treating women harshly, don't point the finger at Theseus. If he truly was a devout Greek, he no doubt would have done what he did. He had Zeus for a father, and I quote John McCrea here "Now Zeus was a womanizer/always on the play", and with an example like that, your god and your father running around promisicously, what can the son be expected to do? At least he was marrying her as well, unlike Zeus who would rut with any woman (and probably a few boys, this being Greece and all).
Justin Rod

I think I'd need an aweful lot of motivation to willingly have either of mybreasts removed, especially using primitive medical instruments without anesthesia under unsterilized conditions. Since modern women can be skilled archers without having a mastectomy, I don't see the Amazons' reasoning. Unless it was a desperate attempt to make themselves less desirable to would-be abducters.

Sounds like something the Greeks would make up. A woman warrior could not be a beautiful, WHOLE woman.

Yeah, I'm not buying the whole removal of the right breast thing. First of all, what if she's left handed, did she have her left breast removed? I think not.
I own a bow and have fairly large boobs and they don't get in the way. Seriously. I doubt any woman would do this willingly.

I want to thank everyone, especially hetrodoxly, for posting some of the most interesting links I've ever read.

Did anyone else see the documentary on Amazon Warriors that was on TDC or TLC about the woman who traced the DNA of an "Amazon" to China and found a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes in a small tribe in the mountains that had a partial DNA match?
I can't remember the name of it, but it was very convincing.

Yes, I saw the documentary. It was conducted by archaelogist, Dr. Jeannine Davis-Kimball. I posted some reviews of her book on Women Warriors in this thread. It really was an amazing documentary. I believe it took place in Mongolia.

Thank you! for telling me the name of the Dr. I couldn't remember it.

If you haven't read her book, you should!

I will! Thanks again!

Yes, women in hellenic society may have been better off than roman women, but usually weren't much freer than slaves. Egypt is where rights were almost equal, as a consequence of equal responsibilities. Everyone served the king, and loved it, or else.

Yes, in Egypt the women in the royal family had a great deal of power and some women actually ruled as Pharoah. That NEVER happened in Rome or Greece.

Not only that, even ordinary women could own property and conduct their own business.
Also, personal slavery was a bit milder there than in other early civilizations, though that was balanced by the fact that anyone could be conscripted into working on public projects, women as often as men.

The Irish mythical hero chuchulaine learned his fighting skills from the best with the sword, her name was Scathach.

Of course, there was always the real life of La Maupin
http://home.comcast.net/~brons/Maupin/LaMaupin.html

You are thinking about the Celtic women warriors from about 320 - 360 AD. Look up information on one of the women warrior leaders namer Budica

I may have missed it, but it seems everyone's forgotten Joan of Arc!

I seriously doubt that Amazon women would remove either of their breasts. If need be, they could have just strapped them up tight, or something. Greek warrior goddesses managed to keep both their boobs...

a Women can be a warrior as capable if not more so then a man only one week a month.
Seriosly what would happen if the WNBA all stars played the NBA allstars what do you think would happen, or maybe football or boxing, man are superior to women physically, so their is no place on the battle field for women unless their is a shortage of troops like in Israel or WW2 Soviet Union.

Boudicca: Celtic warrior queen, quite a story: heres the link......>http://dede.essortment.com/boudicca_reez.htm



The following women rate as warriors as well in my book, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Grace O'Malley and so forth and so on.....although these women weren't ancient, they were still warriors..........link.........>http://members.tripod.com/cathreese/DefiantWomen/pirates/

Why do you say that?

What would happen if the WNBA played the NBA? Uhm, nothing much interesting? Men and women play basketball together all the time.

Etruscan women were also pretty equal (much to the disgust of the Romans and the Greeks!)

Once a month as in Period. Stupid joke.

Umm yes man and women can play together but if they play against each other the women will always lose, even more in contact sports like hockey,football or boxing not to mention fighting for your freaking life.

So because a period comes once a month, lasting 5 days at the most...women can only play basketball one week throughout the entire month? Well, you might not want to hear this, but anyhoo, playing sports and exercising actually helps menstruation. It can ease cramps, can give more energy, and extra aggression on the court. Just because women get their periods doesn't paralyze them from doing anything lol.

As far as women ALWAYS losing to men in contact sports such as basketball and boxing, I think that varies on an individual basis. There are too many criteria to put into statistics. I can see your point to football.

Edited.