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Amati | Violas | Violas |
Amati | The Stanley Solomon Tenore ca 1536 | The Stanley Solomon Tenore ca 1536
Andrea Amati ca 1536
Originally a tenor viola, the front is of pine of slightly wavy grain of medium width. The back is one-piece of maple, slab-cut, slightly flamed but with evident circular decorations. The little scroll is later, but it matches the instrument. The varnish is golden brown.
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 43.2 20.6 13.7 24.5
Archivio della Liuteria Cremonese
Tarisio |
Amati | The Witten, The IX Charles, The ex Collis ca 1560 | The Witten, The IX Charles, The ex Collis ca 1560
Andrea Amati ca 1560
This rare viola is one of the best preserved of Andrea Amati's decorated instruments. It features gilt paintings of fleurs-de-lis and trefoils on its back, surrounding the monogram identified by Italian scholar Renato Meucci to be that of Marguerite de Valois-Angoulême. The Latin motto painted in gilt around the monogram, as well as around the ribs, is identical to that found on the Museum's Amati violin made at about the same time and may relate to the court of King Philip II of Spain. The loss of some of the mottoes' text, as well as other decorative elements painted on the back, clearly reveals that this instrument was reduced in both length and width from its original, large tenor dimensions.
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 40.6 18.5 13.1 23.9
Fine Strings
National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota
National Music Museum, The University of South Dakota
Tarisio |
Amati | From the Charles IX Set ca 1564 | From the Charles IX Set ca 1564
Andrea Amati ca 1564
Large tenor viola with Charles IX decoration. Two-piece back of small-figured maple, bearing the royal insignia and motto. Top of pine of varying grain. Original scroll. Golden-brown varnish. Label not original: "Andrea Amadi in Cremona M. D. L. xxiiij." (1574).
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 46.9 22.5 15.1 26.9
Tarisio
Tarisio |
Amati | Held at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford | Held at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford
Andrea Amati ca 1564
Ashmolean Museum Oxford |
Amati | The ex Wahl ca 1568 | The ex Wahl ca 1568
Andrea Amati ca 1568
Two-piece back with an ebony inlay of "Chinese-knot" design. Scroll not original. Label not original, dated 1568.
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 42.7 21 14 25.1
Strings Magazine
Tarisio |
Amati | The ex Herrmann ca 1620 | The ex Herrmann ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
Northern Italian viola attributed to Andrea Amati. Made, in our opinion, circa 1620 by a member of the Amati school. The head by another maker. The back is from one piece of slab cut maple with faint irregular flames. The sides are from slab cut maple similar to the back. The scroll is from quarter cut maple with faint narrow flames. The top is from two pieces of spruce with medium and narrow grain. The dimensions are somewhat reduced. The varnish has a golden brown color. Labelled "ANDREAS AMATIUS CREMONA 1567".
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 40.9 18.6 13.4 23.2
Christie's
Featured in . |
Amati | The Violetta ca 1570 | The Violetta ca 1570
Andrea Amati ca 1570
Two-piece back. The painted decoration is the coat of arms of the Spanish crown. Top with two small wings in the lower bouts. Scroll not original. Labeled "Niccolaus & Antonius Fratres Amati, Cremonem Fes...1649."
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 39.5 19 13.3 23.4
Tarisio |
Amati | The Trampler ca 1580 | The Trampler ca 1580
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1580–90
This instrument was cut down in size around 1800 from an original length of about 47 cm. The ribs are painted with the inscription: "Non AEtesin Homine sed Virtus Consideramus".
Although the instrument comes with a certificate from Simone F. Sacconi attributing it to the Brothers Amati circa 1620, both Charles Beare and Jacques Francais believe it to be a work of Andrea Amati, possibly completed by the Brothers Amati, in which case its date would be closer to 1580.
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 44.4 21.6 15.2 27.6
Tarisio
Featured in . |
Amati | The Henry IV ca 1590 | The Henry IV ca 1590
Girolamo Amati ca 1590
One-piece back, covered with a painting of the armorial bearings of Henry IV supported on each side by an angel. Top of spruce with an open and well-defined grain. Scroll: of faint narrow curl. Ribs of wood similar to back, inscribed in gilt letters "Dvo Proteci Tvnvs". Red-brown varnish.
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 42.2 20 12.9 24.3
Tarisio
Featured in . |
Amati | The Crocfisso, The Medecia ca 1594 | The Crocfisso, The Medecia ca 1594
Antonio & Girolamo Amati, ca 1594
Commissioned for the Medici family, known as the 'Viola Medicea' or the 'Viola del Crocifisso' after the crucifix decoration on its back.
The Strad |
Amati | The Stauffer ca 1615 | The Stauffer ca 1615
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1615
One-piece back of medium curl sloping from left to right. Top of distinct grain, broadening slightly towards the flanks. Scroll of wood similar to back. Ribs of wood similar to back. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled "Antonius & Hieronymus Fr. Amati Cremonen. Andreæ fil. F 1615."
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 41.1 19.6 12.9 24.6
Tarisio |
Amati | The Zukerman, The Kashkashian ca 1617 | The Zukerman, The Kashkashian ca 1617
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1617
Two-piece back. Dendrochronology report by Peter Ratcliff dates the youngest ring of bass and treble sides as 1613.
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 40.6 20.2 14.1 25.5
Tarisio |
Amati | Held by the Cincinnati Art Museum ca 1619 | Held by the Cincinnati Art Museum ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 41.7 19.6 13.1 24.3
Cincinnati Art Museum |
Amati | The Medici, The Hamma ca 1619 | The Medici, The Hamma ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Two-piece back.
Tarizio |
Amati | Held by the Royal Academy of Music London ca 1620 | Held by the Royal Academy of Music London ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
One of the few surviving tenors which has not been reduced in size for modern playing. The head is particularly beautiful and well proportioned. The cheeks are flat, in the style of a cello head, although not so wide as to obstruct the player's left hand. The long and elegant pegbox tapers to a wide throat beneath the perfectly carved scroll. The volutes are hollowed and gather depth from the second through to the narrow final turn. The figured quarter-sawn maple used for the back and sides of the instrument is of a type commonly used by the Amatis. The continuous slope of the flame across the centre joint (achieved by reversing one half of the back before jointing), rather than the mirror-image pattern most commonly seen, is also a feature of their work. The front is of straight and even close-grained spruce.
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 45.0 21.3 14.4 26.1
Royal Academy of Music London
Tarisio |
Amati | The ex Wittgenstein ca 1620 | The ex Wittgenstein ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
Two-piece back; the wax seal below the button depicts a woman's head. Top of narrow grain, widening towards the flanks. Scroll of wood similar to back. Ribs of wood similar to back. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled "Antonio & Hieronimus Fr. Amati / Cremonen Andrea F 1620."
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 43.0 19.6 13.1 24.3
Tarisio
Ingles & Hayday |
Amati | Held in the Galleria Estense Modena ca 1625 | Held in the Galleria Estense Modena ca 1625
Girolamo Amati ca 1625
Labelled "Antonius, & Hieronymus, Fr. Amati Cremonen. Andrae fil. F.1620" (not original).
Back of maple. Top of spruce with a pronounced, rather wide grain. Ribs of the same maple as the back.
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 40.9 19.5 12.7 24.3
The subject of the book The Girolamo Amati viola in the Galleria Estense, Treasures of Italian Violin Making Vol I, 2014 |
Amati | The ex Vieuxtemps | The ex Vieuxtemps
Nicolò Amati, date unknown
Tarisio
Nicolo Amati ca 1663
Two-piece spruce top of medium width grain widening to the edges, two-piece back of quarter sawn maple with faint flame of narrow width mostly horizontal, ribs and scroll of similar maple, and varnish of an orange-brown color over a golden ground. There is an original printed label inside the instrument reads "Nicolaus Amatus Cremonen. Hieronymi Fil. ac Antonij Nepos Fecit. 1663"
National Museum of American History |
Amati | The Berkitz, The Romanov ca 1677 | The Berkitz, The Romanov ca 1677
Nicolò Amati ca 1677
Tariso
The Strad Shop
The Strad Shop |
Amati | The ex Waters ca 1703 | The ex Waters ca 1703
Nicolò Amati ca 1703
Toronto Symphony Orchestra
Toronto Symphony Orchestra |
Amati | The ex Francais 1708 | The ex Francais 1708
Girolamo Amati II ca 1708
Two-piece back of small curl. Top of pine of well-defined and rather open grain. Scroll of less pronounced curl. Ribs of less pronounced curl. Golden-brown varnish. Labeled "Hieronymus Amatus Cremonen Nicolai figlius fecit 1708."
+ Measurements (cm) Length of back Upper Bout Middle Bouts Lower Bouts 43.9 21.9 13.8 25.7
Tarisio |
Amati | Other Amati violas in the Tarisio archive | Other Amati violas in the Tarisio archive
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1592
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1607
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1611
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1616
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1619
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1620
Antonio & Girolamo Amati ca 1628 |
Amati | In popular culture | In popular culture
Patrick O'Brian's fictional British sea captain Jack Aubrey is described as owning a "fiddle far above his station, an Amati no less", in The Surgeon's Mate. In the Wine-Dark Sea, book fifteen of the series, Stephen Maturin now has a Girolamo Amati and Aubrey a Guarneri.
In Satyajit Ray's short story Bosepukure Khoonkharapi, the fictional detective Feluda deduces that a character was murdered because he owned an Amati
violin.
In the manga and anime series Gunslinger Girl, Henrietta carries an Amati violin case. It contains a Fabrique Nationale P90 when on a mission, otherwise it contains a real violin.
On the radio show, Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar, the January 1956 episode "The Ricardo Amerigo Matter" centered on a stolen Amati violin.
In the 2022 Cormac McCarthy novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris, Alicia Western purchases an Amati violin for more than $200,000 while she is in her mid- to late teens, paying in cash from money she inherited. In Stella Maris, she relates this to her psychiatrist while in a psychiatric hospital, describing the details of the purchase and some history of the Amati instruments. McCarthy, C., The Passenger and Stella Maris, New York: Knopf (2022). |
Amati | See also | See also
Antonio Stradivari
Amati Quartet
Dom Nicolò Amati (1662–1752), Italian luthier not part of this family but who adopted this surname
Luthier
San Maurizio, Venice |
Amati | Notes | Notes |
Amati | References | References
Dilworth, John (1992). "The Violin and Bow-Origins and Development", in: The Cambridge Companion to the Violin, ed. Robin Stowell. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–29.
|
Amati | External links | External links
Andrea Amati: Violin, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Instruments of the Amati family on the online database MIMO, website mimo-international.com.
Category:Amati instruments
Category:Luthiers from Cremona
Category:Italian families |
Amati | Table of Content | Short description, Family members, Andrea Amati, Antonio and Girolamo Amati, Nicolò Amati, Girolamo Amati (Hieronymus II), Extant Amati instruments, United Kingdom, United States, Violas, The Stanley Solomon Tenore ca 1536, The Witten, The IX Charles, The ex Collis ca 1560, From the Charles IX Set ca 1564, Held at the Ashmolean Museum Oxford, The ex Wahl ca 1568, The ex Herrmann ca 1620, The Violetta ca 1570, The Trampler ca 1580, The Henry IV ca 1590, The Crocfisso, The Medecia ca 1594, The Stauffer ca 1615, The Zukerman, The Kashkashian ca 1617, Held by the Cincinnati Art Museum ca 1619, The Medici, The Hamma ca 1619, Held by the Royal Academy of Music London ca 1620, The ex Wittgenstein ca 1620, Held in the Galleria Estense Modena ca 1625, The ex Vieuxtemps, The Berkitz, The Romanov ca 1677, The ex Waters ca 1703, The ex Francais 1708, Other Amati violas in the Tarisio archive, In popular culture, See also, Notes, References, External links |
Alfonso II | '''Alfonso II''' | Alfonso II may refer to:
Alfonso II of Asturias (791–842)
Alfonso II of Aragon (1162–1196)
Alfonso II, Count of Provence (1174–1209)
Afonso II of Portugal (1185–1223), "the Fat"
Alfonso, Count of Poitou (1220–1271), jure uxoris Alfonso II, Count of Toulouse
Alfonso II, Duke of Gandia (–1422)
Alfonso II of Naples (1448–1495)
Alfonso II Piccolomini (1499–1559), Neapolitan nobleman and military leader
Alfonso II d'Este (1533–1597), duke of Ferrara
Alfonso, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz (1972–1989), Legitimist pretender to the French throne
de:Liste der Herrscher namens Alfons#Alfons II. |
Alfonso II | Table of Content | '''Alfonso II''' |
Alfonso III | '''Alfonso III''' | Alfonso III (Spanish) or Afonso III (Portuguese) may refer to:
Alfonso III of Asturias (866–910), surnamed "the Great"
Afonso III of Portugal (1210–1279)
Alfonso III of Aragon (1285–1291)
Alfonso III d'Este, Duke of Modena and Reggio (1628–1644)
Afonso III of Kongo (1666–1667) |
Alfonso III | Table of Content | '''Alfonso III''' |
Alfonso IV | '''Alfonso IV''' | Alfonso IV may refer to:
Alfonso IV of León (924–931)
Afonso IV of Portugal (1291–1357)
Alfonso IV of Aragon (1327–1336)
Alfonso IV of Ribagorza (1332–1412)
Alfonso IV d'Este (1634–1662), Duke of Modena and Regg |
Alfonso IV | Table of Content | '''Alfonso IV''' |
Amazons | Short description | thumb|Wounded Amazon of the Capitoline Museums, Rome
thumb|A Greek fighting an Amazon; detail from painted sarcophagus found in Italy, 350–325 BCE
thumb|upright=.8|"Amazon preparing for battle" (Queen Antiope or Hippolyta) or "Armed Venus", by Pierre-Eugène-Emile Hébert, 1860, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The Amazons (Ancient Greek: , singular ; in Latin , ) were a people in Greek mythology, portrayed in a number of ancient epic poems and legends, such as the Labours of Heracles, the Argonautica and the Iliad. They were female warriors and hunters, known for their physical agility, strength, archery, riding skills, and the arts of combat. Their society was closed to men and they raised only their daughters, returning their sons to their fathers with whom they would only socialize briefly in order to reproduce.
Courageous and fiercely independent, the Amazons, commanded by their queen, regularly undertook extensive military expeditions into the far corners of the world, from Scythia to Thrace, Asia Minor, and the Aegean Islands, reaching as far as Arabia and Egypt. Besides military raids, the Amazons are also associated with the foundation of temples and the establishment of numerous ancient cities like Ephesos, Cyme, Smyrna, Sinope, Myrina, Magnesia, Pygela, etc.
The texts of the original myths envisioned the homeland of the Amazons at the periphery of the then-known world. Various claims to the exact place ranged from provinces in Asia Minor (Lycia, Caria, etc.) to the steppes around the Black Sea, or even Libya (Libyan Amazon). However, authors most frequently referred to Pontus in northern Anatolia, on the southern shores of the Black Sea, as the independent Amazon kingdom where the Amazon queen resided at her capital Themiscyra, on the banks of the Thermodon river.
Decades of archaeological discoveries of burial sites of female warriors, including royalty, in the Eurasian Steppes suggest that the horse cultures of the Scythian, Sarmatian, and Hittite peoples likely inspired the Amazon myth. In 2019, a grave with multiple generations of female Scythian warriors, armed and in golden headdresses, was found near Voronezh in southwestern Russia. |
Amazons | Name | Name |
Amazons | Etymology | Etymology
thumb|Departure of the Amazons, by Claude Deruet, 1620, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
The origin of the word is uncertain. It may be derived from an Iranian ethnonym *ha-mazan- 'warriors', a word attested indirectly through a derivation, a denominal verb in Hesychius of Alexandria's gloss (": 'to make war' in Persian"), where it appears together with the Indo-Iranian root *kar- 'make'.
It may alternatively be a Greek word descended from 'manless, without husbands' (alpha privative combined with a derivation from *man- cognate with Proto-Balto-Slavic *mangjá-, found in Czech muž) has been proposed, an explanation deemed "unlikely" by Hjalmar Frisk. A further explanation proposes Iranian *ama-janah 'virility-killing' as source.
Among the ancient Greeks, the term Amazon was popularly folk etymologized as originating from the Greek , ('breastless'), from -a ('without') and , a variant of ('breast'), connected with an etiological tradition once claimed by Marcus Justinus who alleged that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out. There is no indication of such a practice in ancient works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although one is frequently covered. According to Philostratus, Amazon babies were not fed just with the right breast. Author Adrienne Mayor suggests that the false etymology led to the myth. |
Amazons | Alternative terms | Alternative terms
Herodotus used the terms Androktones () 'killers/slayers of men' or 'of husbands' and Androleteirai () 'destroyers of men, murderesses'. Amazons are called Antianeirai () 'equivalent to men' and Aeschylus used the term Styganor () 'those who loathe all men'.
In his work Prometheus Bound and in The Suppliants, Aeschylus referred to the Amazons as 'the unwed, flesh-devouring Amazons' (). In the Hippolytus tragedy, Phaedra calls Hippolytus, 'the son of the horse-loving Amazon' (). In his Dionysiaca, Nonnus calls the Amazons of Dionysus Androphonus () 'men slaying'.
Herodotus stated that in the Scythian language, the Amazons were called Oiorpata, which he explained as being from oior 'man' and pata 'to slay'. |
Amazons | Historiography | Historiography
thumb|Amazons in the Nuremberg Chronicle by Hartmann Schedel, 1493
The ancient Greeks never had any doubts that the Amazons were, or had been, real. Not the only people enchanted by warlike women of nomadic cultures, such exciting tales also come from ancient Egypt, Persia, India, and China. Greek heroes of old had encounters with the queens of their martial society and fought them. However, their original home was not exactly known, thought to be in the obscure lands beyond the civilized world."The Amazons existed outside the range of normal human experience": As a result, many classical scholars consider Amazons to be entirely fictional figures, invented by Greek men to serve as “anti-women” or to symbolize Persians. Some authors preferred comparisons to cultures of Asia Minor or even Minoan Crete. The most obvious historical candidates are Lycia and Scythia and Sarmatia in line with the account by Herodotus. In his Histories (5th century BCE) Herodotus claims that the Sauromatae (predecessors of the Sarmatians), who ruled the lands between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, arose from a union of Scythians and Amazons.
Herodotus also observed rather unusual customs among the Lycians of southwest Asia Minor. The Lycians obviously followed matrilineal rules of descent, virtue, and status. They named themselves along their maternal family line and a child's status was determined by the mother's reputation. This remarkably high esteem of women and legal regulations based on maternal lines, still in effect in the 5th century BCE in the Lycian regions that Herodotus had traveled to, suggested to him the idea that these people were descendants of the mythical Amazons.
Modern historiography no longer relies exclusively on textual and artistic material, but also on the vast archaeological evidence of over a thousand nomad graves from steppe territories from the Black Sea all the way to Mongolia. Discoveries of battle-scarred female skeletons buried with their weapons (bows and arrows, quivers, and spears) prove that women warriors were not merely figments of imagination, but the product of the Scythian and Sarmatian horse-centered lifestyle, however it is not known for certain if these people were the inspiration for the Amazons of Greek mythology. |
Amazons | Mythology | Mythology
thumb|Battle of the Amazons, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1618, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
According to myth, Otrera, the first Amazon queen, is the offspring of a romance between Ares the god of war and the nymph Harmonia of the Akmonian Wood, and as such a demigoddess.
Early records refer to two events in which Amazons appeared prior to the Trojan War (before 1250 BCE). Within the epic context, Bellerophon, Greek hero, and grandfather of the brothers and Trojan War veterans Glaukos and Sarpedon, faced Amazons during his stay in Lycia, when King Iobates sent Bellerophon to fight the Amazons, hoping they would kill him, yet Bellerophon slew them all. The youthful King Priam of Troy fought on the side of the Phrygians, who were attacked by Amazons at the Sangarios River. |
Amazons | Amazons in the Trojan War | Amazons in the Trojan War
There are Amazon characters in Homer's Trojan War epic poem, the Iliad, one of the oldest surviving texts in Europe (around 8th century BCE).
The now lost epic Aethiopis (probably by Arctinus of Miletus, 6th century BC), like the Iliad and several other epics, is one of the works that in combination form the Trojan War Epic Cycle. In one of the few references to the text, an Amazon force under queen Penthesilea, who was of Thracian birth, came to join the ranks of the Trojans after Hector's death and initially put the Greeks under serious pressure. Only after the greatest effort and the help of the reinvigorated hero Achilles, the Greeks eventually triumphed. Penthesilea died fighting the mighty Achilles in single combat. Homer himself deemed the Amazon myths to be common knowledge all over Greece, which suggests that they had already been known for some time before him. He was also convinced that the Amazons lived not at its fringes, but somewhere in or around Lycia in Asia Minor - a place well within the Greek world.
Troy is mentioned in the Iliad as the place of Myrine's death. Later identified as an Amazon queen, according to Diodorus (1st century BCE), the Amazons under her rule invaded the territories of the Atlantians, defeated the army of the Atlantian city of Cerne, and razed the city to the ground. |
Amazons | In Scythia | In Scythia
thumb|An amazon fighter statue in Terme, Turkey
The Poet Bacchylides (6th century BCE) and the historian Herodotus (5th century BCE) located the Amazon homeland in Pontus at the southern shores of the Black Sea, and the capital Themiscyra at the banks of the Thermodon (modern Terme river), by the modern city of Terme. Herodotus also explains how it came to be that some Amazons would eventually be living in Scythia. A Greek fleet, sailing home upon defeating the Amazons in battle at the Thermodon river, included three ships crowded with Amazon prisoners. Once out at sea, the Amazon prisoners overwhelmed and killed the small crews of the prisoner ships and, despite not having even basic navigation skills, managed to escape and safely disembark at the Scythian shore. As soon as the Amazons had caught enough horses, they easily asserted themselves in the steppe in between the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea and, according to Herodotus, would eventually assimilate with the Scythians, whose descendants were the Sauromatae, the predecessors of the Sarmatians. |
Amazons | Amazon homeland | Amazon homeland
Strabo (1st century BCE) visits and confirms the original homeland of the Amazons on the plains by the Thermodon river. However, long gone and not seen again during his lifetime, the Amazons had allegedly retreated into the mountains. Strabo, however, added that other authors, among them Metrodorus of Scepsis and Hypsicrates claim that after abandoning Themiscyra, the Amazons had chosen to resettle beyond the borders of the Gargareans, an all-male tribe native to the northern foothills of the Caucasian Mountains. The Amazons and Gargareans had for many generations met in secrecy once a year during two months in spring, in order to produce children. These encounters would take place in accordance with ancient tribal customs and collective offers of sacrifices. All females were retained by the Amazons themselves, and males were returned to the Gargareans. 5th century BCE poet Magnes sings of the bravery of the Lydians in a cavalry-battle against the Amazons. |
Amazons | Heracles myth | Heracles myth
thumb|upright|A Tyrrhenian amphora, depicting an Amazonomachy - Heracles fights Andromache, Telamon fights Ainipe and Iphis fights Panariste, BCE, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Hippolyte was an Amazon queen killed by Heracles, who had set out to obtain the queen's magic belt in a task he was to accomplish as one of the Labours of Heracles. Although neither side had intended to resort to lethal combat, a misunderstanding led to the fight. In the course of this, Heracles killed the queen and several other Amazons. In awe of the strong hero, the Amazons eventually handed the belt to Heracles. In another version, Heracles does not kill the queen, but exchanges her kidnapped sister Melanippe for the belt. |
Amazons | Theseus myth | Theseus myth
Queen Hippolyte was abducted by Theseus, who took her to Athens, where she was married to him and bore him a son, Hippolytus. In other versions, the kidnapped Amazon is called Antiope, the sister of Hippolyte. In revenge, the Amazons invaded Greece, plundered some cities along the coast of Attica, and besieged and occupied Athens. Hippolyte, who fought on the side of Athens, according to another account was killed during the final battle along with all of the Amazons. |
Amazons | Amazons and Dionysus | Amazons and Dionysus
According to Plutarch, the god Dionysus and his companions fought Amazons at Ephesus. The Amazons fled to Samos and Dionysus pursued them and killed a great number of them at a site since called Panaema (blood-soaked field). The Christian author Eusebius writes that during the reign of Oxyntes, one of the mythical kings of Athens, the Amazons burned down the temple at Ephesus.
In another myth Dionysus unites with the Amazons to fight against Cronus and the Titans. Polyaenus writes that after Dionysus has subdued the Indians, he allies with them and the Amazons and takes them into his service, who serve him in his campaign against the Bactrians. Nonnus in his Dionysiaca reports about the Amazons of Dionysus, but states that they do not come from Thermodon. |
Amazons | Amazons and Alexander the Great | Amazons and Alexander the Great
thumb|The Amazon Queen Thalestris in the camp of Alexander the Great, Johann Georg Platzer
Amazons are also mentioned by biographers of Alexander the Great, who report of Queen Thalestris bearing him a child (a story in the Alexander Romance).Greek Alexander Romance, 3.25–26 However, other biographers of Alexander dispute the claim, including the highly regarded Plutarch. He noted a moment when Alexander's naval commander Onesicritus read an Amazon myth passage of his Alexander History to King Lysimachus of Thrace who had taken part in the original expedition. The king smiled at him and said: "And where was I, then?"Plutarch, Life of Alexander, Chapter 46
The TalmudTamid 32a recounts that Alexander wanted to conquer a "kingdom of women" but reconsidered when the women told him: |
Amazons | Roman and ancient Egyptian records | Roman and ancient Egyptian records
thumb|left|upright|Armed Amazon, her shield decorates a Gorgon head; Tondo of Attic red-figure kylix, BCE, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Berlin.
Virgil's characterization of the Volsci warrior maiden Camilla in the Aeneid borrows from the myths of the Amazons. Philostratus, in Heroica, writes that the Mysian women fought on horses alongside the men, just as the Amazons. The leader was Hiera, wife of Telephus. The Amazons are also said to have undertaken an expedition against the Island of Leuke, at the mouth of the Danube, where the ashes of Achilles were deposited by Thetis. The ghost of the dead hero so terrified the horses, that they threw off and trampled upon the invaders, who were forced to retreat. Virgil touches on the Amazons and their queen Penthesilea in his epic Aeneid (around 20 BCE).
The biographer Suetonius had Julius Caesar remark in his De vita Caesarum that the Amazons once ruled a large part of Asia. Appian provides a vivid description of Themiscyra and its fortifications in his account of Lucius Licinius Lucullus' Siege of Themiscyra in 71 BCE during the Third Mithridatic War.
An Amazon myth has been partly preserved in two badly fragmented versions around historical people in 7th century BCE Egypt. The Egyptian prince Petechonsis and allied Assyrian troops undertook a joint campaign into the Land of Women, to the Middle East at the border to India. Petechonsis initially fought the Amazons, but soon fell in love with their queen Sarpot and eventually allied with her against an invading Indian army. This story is said to have originated in Egypt independently of Greek influences. |
Amazons | Amazon queens | Amazon queens
thumb|right|Caryatid Amazon from the villa of Herodes Atticus, 2nd century CE, National Archaeological Museum of Athens.
Sources provide names of individual Amazons, that are referred to as queens of their people, even as the head of a dynasty. Without a male companion, they are portrayed in command of their female warriors. Among the most prominent Amazon queens were:
Otrera, daughter of the nymph Harmonia and god of war, Ares. She is the mother of Hippolyta, Antiope, Melanippe, and Penthesilea and the mythical founder of the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus.
Hippolyta, daughter of Otrera and Ares. She is part of the Theseus and Heracles myths, in which Antiope is her sister. Alcippe, the only Amazon known to have sworn a chastity oath, belongs to her entourage.
Penthesilea, who kills her sister Hippolyte in a hunting accident, comes to the aid of the hard-pressed Trojans with her warriors, is defeated by Achilles, who mourns her.
Lampedo and Marpesia, queens of the Amazons mentioned by Justin
Myrina, who leads a military expedition in Libya, defeats the Atlanteans, forms an alliance with the ruler of Egypt, and conquers numerous cities and islands.
Thalestris, the last known Amazon queen. According to legend, she meets the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great in 330 BCE. Her home is the Thermodon region, or, variably, the Gates of Alexander, south of the Caspian Sea. |
Amazons | Various authors and chroniclers | Various authors and chroniclers
thumb|upright=1.3|A hippeis rider seizes a mounted Amazonian warrior armed with a labrys by her Phrygian cap. Roman mosaic emblema (marble and limestone) from Daphne, a suburb of Antioch-on-the-Orontes (now Antakya in Turkey), second half of the 4th century CE, the Louvre, Paris. |
Amazons | Quintus Smyrnaeus | Quintus Smyrnaeus
Quintus Smyrnaeus, author of the Posthomerica lists the attendant warriors of Penthesilea: "Clonie was there, Polemusa, Derinoe, Evandre, and Antandre, and Bremusa, Hippothoe, dark-eyed Harmothoe, Alcibie, Derimacheia, Antibrote, and Thermodosa glorying with the spear." |
Amazons | Diodorus Siculus | Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus lists twelve Amazons who challenged and died fighting Heracles during his quest for Hippolyta's girdle: Aella, Philippis, Prothoe, Eriboea, Celaeno, Eurybia, Phoebe, Deianeira, Asteria, Marpe, Tecmessa, and Alcippe. After Alcippe's death, a group attack followed. Diodorus also mentions Melanippe, whom Heracles set free after accepting her girdle and Antiope as ransom.
Diodorus lists another group with Myrina as the queen who commanded the Amazons in a military expedition in Libya, as well as her sister Mytilene, after whom she named the city of the same name. Myrina also named three more cities after the Amazons who held the most important commands under her, Cyme, Pitane, and Priene. |
Amazons | Justin and Paulus Orosius | Justin and Paulus Orosius
Both Justin in his Epitome of Trogus Pompeius and Paulus Orosius give an account of the Amazons, citing the same names. Queens Marpesia and Lampedo shared the power during an incursion in Europe and Asia, where they were slain. Marpesia's daughter Orithyia succeeded them and was greatly admired for her skill on war. She shared power with her sister Antiope, but she was engaged in war abroad when Heracles attacked. Two of Antiope's sisters were taken prisoner, Melanippe by Heracles and Hippolyta by Theseus. Heracles latter restored Melanippe to her sister after receiving the queen's arms in exchange, though, on other accounts she was killed by Telamon. They also mention Penthesilea's role in the Trojan War.Scholia on Pindar, Nemean Ode 3. 64Paulus Orosius, Historiae adversus paganos, I. 15
thumb|Battle of the Amazons by Rubens and Jan Brueghel, , Sanssouci Picture Gallery, Potsdam |
Amazons | Hyginus | Hyginus
Another list of Amazons' names is found in Hyginus' Fabulae. Along with Hippolyta, Otrera, Antiope and Penthesilea, it attests the following names: Ocyale, Dioxippe, Iphinome, Xanthe, Hippothoe, Laomache, Glauce, Agave, Theseis, Clymene, Polydora.
Perhaps the most important is Queen Otrera, consort of Ares and mother by him of Hippolyta and Penthesilea.Apollodorus, Bibliotheca E5. 1 She is also known for building a temple to Artemis at Ephesus.Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica 2. 370 ff and 382 ff |
Amazons | Valerius Flaccus | Valerius Flaccus
Another different set of names is found in Valerius Flaccus' Argonautica. He mentions Euryale, Harpe, Lyce, Menippe and Thoe. Of these Lyce also appears on a fragment, preserved in the Latin Anthology where she is said to have killed the hero Clonus of Moesia, son of Doryclus, with her javelin. |
Amazons | Palaephatus | Palaephatus
Palaephatus, who himself might have been a fictional character, attempted to rationalize the Greek myths in his work On Unbelievable Tales. He suspected that the Amazons were probably men who were mistaken for women by their enemies because they wore clothing that reached their feet, tied up their hair in headbands, and shaved their beards. Probably the first in a long line of skeptics, he rejected any real basis for them, reasoning that because they did not exist during his time, most probably they did not exist in the past either. He himself contradicted this in his rationalizing of Oedipus and the Sphinx, portraying the latter as an Amazon woman named "Sphinx." |
Amazons | Late Antiquity, Middle Age, and Renaissance literature | Late Antiquity, Middle Age, and Renaissance literature
thumb|upright=.8|Clay statue of a Mattei-type Amazon, Numismatic Museum of Athens, Greece.
Stephanus of Byzantium (7th-century CE) provides numerous alternative lists of the Amazons, including for those who died in combat against Heracles, describing them as the most prominent of their people. Both Stephanus and Eustathius connect these Amazons with the placename Thibais, which they claim to have been derived from the Amazon Thiba's name. Several of Stephanus' Amazons served as eponyms for cities in Asia Minor, like Cyme and Smyrna or Amastris, who was believed to lend her name to the city previously known as Kromna, although in fact it was named after the historical Amastris. The city Anaea in Caria was named after an Amazon.
In his work Getica (on the origin and history of the Goths, ), Jordanes asserts that the Goths' ancestors, descendants of Magog, originally lived in Scythia, at the Sea of Azov between the Dnieper and Don Rivers. When the Goths were abroad campaigning against Pharaoh Vesosis, their women, on their own successfully fended off a raid by a neighboring tribe. Emboldened, the women established their own army under Marpesia, crossed the Don and invaded eastward into Asia. Marpesia's sister Lampedo remained in Europe to guard the homeland. They procreated with men once a year. These women conquered Armenia, Syria, and all of Asia Minor, even reaching Ionia and Aeolis, holding this vast territory for 100 years.
In Digenes Akritas, the twelfth century medieval epic of Basil, the Greco-Syrian knight of the Byzantine frontier, the hero battles and then commits adultery with the female warrior Maximo (killing her afterwards in one version of the epic), descended from some Amazons and taken by Alexander from the Brahmans.
John Tzetzes lists in Posthomerica twenty Amazons, who fell at Troy. This list is unique in its attestation for all the names but Antianeira, Andromache, and Hippothoe. Other than these three, the remaining 17 Amazons were named as Toxophone, Toxoanassa, Gortyessa, Iodoce, Pharetre, Andro, Ioxeia, Oistrophe, Androdaixa, Aspidocharme, Enchesimargos, Cnemis, Thorece, Chalcaor, Eurylophe, Hecate, and Anchimache.Tzetzes, Posthomerica 176-182
Famous medieval traveller John Mandeville mentions them in his book:
Medieval and Renaissance authors credit the Amazons with the invention of the battle-axe. This is probably related to the sagaris, an axe-like weapon associated with both Amazons and Scythian tribes by Greek authors (see also Thracian tomb of Aleksandrovo kurgan). Paulus Hector Mair expresses astonishment that such a "manly weapon" should have been invented by a "tribe of women", but he accepts the attribution out of respect for his authority, Johannes Aventinus.
Ariosto's Orlando Furioso contains a country of warrior women, ruled by Queen Orontea; the epic describes an origin much like that in Greek myth, in that the women, abandoned by a band of warriors and unfaithful lovers, rallied together to form a nation from which men were severely reduced, to prevent them from regaining power. The Amazons and Queen Hippolyta are also referenced in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales in "The Knight's Tale".
thumb|right|Francisco de Orellana; he coined the name "Amazon River".
thumb|Amazon in Scythian attire, Attic vase, , Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich
Amazons continued to be subject of scholarly debate during the European Renaissance, and with the onset of the Age of Exploration, encounters were reported from ever more distant lands. In 1542, Francisco de Orellana reached the Amazon River, naming it after the , a tribe of warlike women he claimed to have encountered and fought on the Nhamundá River, a tributary of the Amazon.It has been suggested that what Orellana actually engaged was an especially warlike tribe of Native Americans whose warrior men wore long hair and thus appeared to be women. See Theobaldo Miranda Santos, Lendas e mitos do Brasil ("Brazil's legends and myths"), Companhia Editora Nacional, 1979. Afterwards the whole basin and region of the Amazon (Amazônia in Portuguese, Amazonía in Spanish) were named after the river. Amazons also figure in the accounts of both Christopher Columbus and Walter Raleigh. |
Amazons | Amazons in art | Amazons in art
thumb|left|Two female gladiators with their names Amazonia and Achillea
Beginning around 550 BCE. depictions of Amazons as daring fighters and equestrian warriors appeared on vases. After the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE the Amazon battle - Amazonomachy became popular motifs on pottery. By the sixth century BCE, public and privately displayed artwork used the Amazon imagery for pediment reliefs, sarcophagi, mosaics, pottery, jewelry and even monumental sculptures, that adorned important buildings like the Parthenon in Athens. Amazon motifs remained popular until the Roman imperial period and into Late antiquity.
Apart from the artistic desire to express the passionate womanhood of the Amazons in contrast with the manhood of their enemies, some modern historians interpret the popularity of Amazon in art as indicators of societal trends, both positive and negative. Greek and Roman societies, however, utilized the Amazon mythology as a literary and artistic vehicle to unite against a commonly-held enemy. The metaphysical characteristics of Amazons were seen as personifications of both nature and religion. Roman authors like Virgil, Strabo, Pliny the Elder, Curtius, Plutarch, Arrian, and Pausanias advocated the greatness of the state, as Amazon myths served to discuss the creation of origin and identity for the Roman people. However, that changed over time. Amazons in Roman literature and art have many faces, such as the Trojan ally, the warrior goddess, the native Latin, the warmongering Celt, the proud Sarmatian, the hedonistic and passionate Thracian warrior queen, the subdued Asian city, and the worthy Roman foe.thumb|upright|Juliusz Kossak, An Amazon, 1878
left|thumb|Fra Mauro map (XL) with location placed on the Middle Volga
In Renaissance Europe, artists started to reevaluate and depict Amazons based on Christian ethics. Queen Elizabeth of England was associated with Amazon warrior qualities (the foremost ancient examples of feminism) during her reign and was indeed depicted as such. Though, as explained in Divina Virago by Winfried Schleiner, Celeste T. Wright has given a detailed account of the bad reputation Amazons had in the Renaissance. She notes that she has not found any Elizabethans comparing the Queen to an Amazon and suggests that they might have hesitated to do so because of the association of Amazons with enfranchisement of women, which was considered contemptible. Elizabeth was present at a tournament celebrating the marriage of the Earl of Warwick and Anne Russell at Westminster Palace on 11 November 1565 involving male riders dressed as Amazons. They accompanied the challengers carrying their heraldry. These riders wore crimson gowns, masks with long hair attached, and swords.Thomas Hearne, De rebus Britannicis collectanea, vol. 2 (London, 1774), pp. 666-9
Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel depicted the Battle of the Amazons around 1598, a most dramatic baroque painting, followed by a painting of the Rococo period by Johann Georg Platzer, also titled Battle of the Amazons. In 19th-century European Romanticism German artist Anselm Feuerbach occupied himself with the Amazons as well. Of Faeurbach's painting, Gert Schiff wrote that: It engendered all the aspirations of the Romantics: their desire to transcend the boundaries of the ego and of the known world; their interest in the occult in nature and in the soul; their search for a national identity, and the ensuing search for the mythic origins of the Germanic nation; finally, their wish to escape the harsh realities of the present through immersion in an idealized past. |
Amazons | Maps | Maps
On medieval Borgia Velletri map picture of females with bow and arrow and with spear and shield with description The land formerly of illustrious women of place North (on the bottom) on Edilus fluuius maximus (Volga).
In medieval Fra Mauro map country placed on the Middle Volga. |
Amazons | Archaeology | Archaeology
Speculation that the idea of Amazons, specifically the Amazons known to the Greeks, contains a core of reality is based on archaeological discoveries at kurgan burial sites in the steppes of southern Ukraine and Russia. The varied war weapon artifacts found in graves of numerous high-ranking Scythian and Sarmatian warrior women have led scholars to conclude that the Amazonian legend has been inspired by the real world: About 20% of the warrior graves on the lower Don and lower Volga contained women dressed for battle similar to how men dress. Armed women accounted for up to 25% of Sarmatian military burials. Russian archaeologist Vera Kovalevskaya asserts that when Scythian men were abroad fighting or hunting, women would have to be able to competently defend themselves, their animals, and their pastures.
In early 20th century Minoan archeology, a theory regarding Amazon origins in Minoan civilization was raised in an essay by Lewis Richard Farnell and John Myres. According to Myres, the tradition interpreted in the light of evidence furnished by supposed Amazon cults seems to have been very similar and may have even originated in Minoan culture. |
Amazons | Modern legacy | Modern legacy
thumb|upright|Postcard promoting Munich as Capital of German Art of the Olympia-Sommer 1936. The Amazon holds a longbow and a victory wreath. thumb|Amazon on a special stamp promoting the 1938 German "Brown Ribbon" horse races
The city of Samsun in modern-day Samsun Province, Turkey features an Amazon Village museum, to help bring attention to the legacy of the Amazons and to promote both academic interest and tourism. The Amazon warriors have been seen as a symbol of empowerment for feminist movements. The legacy has empowered and encouraged other women to build their strength and stand against societal norms. They have inspired countless amounts of women to stand up for themselves and what they believe. An annual Amazon Celebration Festival takes place in the Terme district.
During the Ottoman–Egyptian invasion of Mani in 1826, in the battle of Diros the women of Mani defeated the Ottoman army and for this were given the name of 'The Amazons of Diros'.P. Greenhalgh and E. Eliopoulos, 63
From 1936 to 1939, annual propaganda events, called Night of the Amazons (Nacht der Amazonen) were performed in Nazi Germany at the Nymphenburg Palace Park in Munich. Announced as evening highlights of the International Horse Racing Week Munich-Riem, bare-breasted variety show girls of the SS-Cavalry, 2,500 participants and international guests performed at the open-air revue. These revues served to promote an allegedly emancipated female role and a cosmopolitan and foreigner-friendly Nazi regime. |
Amazons | In literature and media | In literature and media |
Amazons | Literature and comics | Literature and comics
Amazon Queen Hippolyta appears in William Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream and also in The Two Noble Kinsmen, which Shakespeare co-wrote with John Fletcher.
The Amazon queen Penthesilea, and her sexual frenzy, are at the center of the drama Penthesilea by Heinrich von Kleist in 1808.
Steven Pressfield's 2002 novel Last of the Amazons is a mythopoeia of Plutarch's texts, that surround Theseus' abduction of Queen Antiope and the Amazons' attack on Athens. An accurate and detailed portrayal of the Archaic Greek world, its life, people, weapons etc. dramatized as real as the sky.
William Moulton Marston, alongside his wife Elizabeth Holloway and their lover Olive Byrne, created their rendition of the mythical Amazons, whose members included the superheroine Wonder Woman, for DC Comics. Marston's Amazons are noteworthy for not just being physically superior to mortal men but also technologically superior, being able to create healing rays and undetectable jet planes that can be controlled through brain waves alone, although this element of Amazon society is applied inconsistently in appearances written after Marston's death.Sensation Comics #6 (June 1942)
In Rick Riordan's The Heroes of Olympus, the Amazons appear in The Son of Neptune and The Blood of Olympus. They are the founders and owners of the Amazon corporation.
In Philip Armstrong's historical-fantasy series, The Chronicles of Tupiluliuma, the Amazons appear as the Am'azzi.
In the Stieg Larsson novel The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest, the Amazons appear as the transitional topics between sections of the book.
Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo created the fictional queen Calafia, who ruled over a kingdom of black women, living in the style of Amazons, on the mythical Island of California.
Amazon Gazonga is a short comic series created by the Waltrip brothers in 1995. The comic centres around on a young amazon named Gazonga living in the Amazon rainforest.
GastroPhobia is a webcomic by Daisy McGuire, about the adventures of an exiled Amazon warrior and her son living in Ancient Greece, roughly 3408 years ago. |
Amazons | Film and television | Film and television
The Kazakhstani film studio "Kazakhfilm" released the film Томирис (Tomyris) in late 2019. She is portrayed by . Girls of her tribe in order to get permissions to marry, in the film, has to bring few enemies heads.
Franchises involving several Tarzan releases, that have featured Amazon tribes (Tarzan and the Amazons, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle)
In the animated series The Mysterious Cities of Gold, a tribe of Amazons appeared in two episodes.
The postscript for the 1980 film 9 to 5 mentioned that Franklin Hart was abducted by a tribe of Amazons when helping Consolidated Companies' chairman of the board Russell Tinsworthy with a project in the Brazilian jungle.
Amazons appear in the movies The Loves of Hercules (1960), Battle of the Amazons (1970), War Goddess (1973), Hundra (1983), Amazons (1986), Deathstalker II (1987), Ronal the Barbarian (2011), Hercules (2014) and DC Extended Universe films: Wonder Woman (2017), Justice League (2017), Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021).
Amazons in television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Young Hercules, Kaos, Xena: Warrior Princess, The Legend of the Hidden City, Huntik: Secrets & Seekers and Supernatural. |
Amazons | Games | Games
Amazons are featured in the following roleplay - and video games: Diablo, Heroes Unlimited, Aliens Unlimited, Amazon: Guardians of Eden, Flight of the Amazon Queen, A Total War Saga: Troy, Rome: Total War, Final Fantasy IV, Age of Wonders: Planetfall, Legend of Zelda series and Yu-Gi-Oh games. |
Amazons | Military units | Military units
thumb|Dahomey Amazons, photo shot around 1890, author unknown
Russian general and statesman Grigory Potemkin, and then favourite of Catherine the Great created an Amazons Company in 1787. Wives and daughters of the soldiers of the Greek Battalion of Balaklava were enlisted and formed this unit.
The Mino, or Minon, (Our Mothers) were a late 19th to early 20th-century all-female official military regiment of the former Kingdom of Dahomey (present-day Benin). Since the early 18th-century women contingents had already joined the army, usually during deployment, in order to inflate the army size. However, women proved themselves courageous and effective in active combat, and a regular unit was established. Western observers, who had allegedly perceived certain Amazon-like physical and mental qualities in these women, came up with the trivial epithet Dahomey Amazons.
The Libyan Amazonian Guard created by Muammar Gaddafi in the early 1980s. |
Amazons | Social and religious activism | Social and religious activism
During the period 1905–1913, members of the militant Suffragette movement were frequently referred to as "Amazons" in books and newspaper articles.Wilson, Gretchen "With All Her Might: The Life of Gertrude Harding, Militant Suffragette" (Holmes & Meier Publishing, April 1998)
In Ukraine Katerina Tarnovska leads a group called the Asgarda which claims to be a new tribe of Amazons. Tarnovska believes that the Amazons are the direct ancestors of Ukrainian women, and she has created an all-female martial art for her group, based on another form of fighting called Combat Hopak, but with a special emphasis on self-defense. |
Amazons | Science | Science
The Neptune trojans, asteroids 60° ahead or beyond Neptune on its orbit, are individually named after mythological Amazons. |
Amazons | See also | See also
Action heroine
Amazons (DC Comics)
Matriarchy
List of Amazons
List of female action heroes and villains
List of women warriors in folklore
Onna-bugeisha, female warrior in Japanese nobility
Shieldmaiden, female warrior in northern Europe
Timeline of women in ancient warfare
Tomyris
Urduja, from Philippine mythology
Women in the military
Women warriors in literature and culture |
Amazons | References | References |
Amazons | Sources | Sources |
Amazons | Primary | Primary
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Amazons | Secondary | Secondary
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Amazons | Further reading | Further reading
Adams, Maeve. "Amazons." The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies (2016): 1–4.
"AMAZONS Women of the Steppe and the Idea of the Female Warrior". In: Ball, Warwick. The Eurasian Steppe: People, Movement, Ideas. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022. pp. 117–135. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781474488075-010
Dowden, Ken. “THE AMAZONS: DEVELOPMENT AND FUNCTIONS”. In: Rheinisches Museum Für Philologie 140, no. 2 (1997): 97–128. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41234269.
Fialko, Elena (2018). "Scythian Female Warriors in the South of Eastern Europe". In: Folia Praehistorica Posnaniensia 22 (lipiec), 29–47. https://doi.org/10.14746/fpp.2017.22.02.
Guliaev, V. I. (2003). "Amazons in the Scythia: New finds at the Middle Don, Southern Russia". In: World Archaeology, 35:1, 112–125. DOI: 10.1080/0043824032000078117
Hardwick, Lorna (1990). "Ancient Amazons - Heroes, Outsiders or Women?". In: Greece & Rome, 37, pp. 14–36. doi:10.1017/S0017383500029521
Liccardo, Salvatore. "Different Gentes, Same Amazons: The Myth of Women Warriors at the Service of Ethnic Discourse." Medieval History Journal 21.2 (2018): 222–250.
Mayor, Adrienne. The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World. Princeton University Press, 2014. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7zvndm. online review
Maartel Bremer, Jan. "THE AMAZONS IN THE IMAGINATION OF THE GREEKS". In: Acta Antiqua 40, 1-4 (2000): 51–59. Accessed Jul 17, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1556/aant.40.2000.1-4.6
Toler, Pamela D. Women warriors: An unexpected history (Beacon Press, 2019).
von Rothmer, Dietrich, Amazons in Greek Art (Oxford University Press, 1957)
Vovoura, Despoina. “Women Warriors(?) And the Amazon Myth: The Evidence of Female Burials with Weapons in the Black Sea Area”. In: The Greeks and Romans in the Black Sea and the Importance of the Pontic Region for the Graeco-Roman World (7th Century BCE-5th Century CE): 20 Years On (1997-2017): Proceedings of the Sixth International Congress on Black Sea Antiquities (Constanţa – 18–22 September 2017). Edited by Gocha R. Tsetskhladze, Alexandru Avram, and James Hargrave. Archaeopress, 2021. pp. 118–28. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv1pdrqhw.22.
Wilde, Lyn Webster. On the trail of the women warriors: The Amazons in myth and history ( Macmillan, 2000). |
Amazons | Other languages | Other languages
Bergmann, F. G. Les Amazones dans l'histoire et dans la fable (1853)
Klugmann, A. Die Amazonen in der attischen Literatur und Kunst (1875)
Krause, H. L. Die Amazonensage (1893)
Lacour, F. Les Amazones (1901)
Mordtmann, Andreas David. Die Amazonen (Hanover, 1862)
Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft
Roscher, W. H., Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie
Santos, Theobaldo Miranda. Lendas e mitos do Brasil (Companhia Editora Nacional, 1979)
Stricker, W. Die Amazonen in Sage und Geschichte (1868) |
Amazons | External links | External links
Wounded Amazon
Herodotus via Gutenberg
Straight Dope: Amazons
Amazon women in the Mongolian steppe
Amazon mtDNA found in Mongolia
The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Amazons)
Category:Legendary tribes in classical historiography
Category:Mythology of Heracles
Category:Children of Ares
Category:Scythia
Category:Single-gender worlds
Category:Women of the Trojan war
Category:Women warriors
Category:Etymology of California
Category:Deeds of Ares |
Amazons | Table of Content | Short description, Name, Etymology, Alternative terms, Historiography, Mythology, Amazons in the Trojan War, In Scythia, Amazon homeland, Heracles myth, Theseus myth, Amazons and Dionysus, Amazons and Alexander the Great, Roman and ancient Egyptian records, Amazon queens, Various authors and chroniclers, Quintus Smyrnaeus, Diodorus Siculus, Justin and Paulus Orosius, Hyginus, Valerius Flaccus, Palaephatus, Late Antiquity, Middle Age, and Renaissance literature, Amazons in art, Maps, Archaeology, Modern legacy, In literature and media, Literature and comics, Film and television, Games, Military units, Social and religious activism, Science, See also, References, Sources, Primary, Secondary, Further reading, Other languages, External links |
Alfonso V | '''Alfonso V''' | Alfonso V (Spanish), Afonso V (Portuguese), Alfons V (Catalan) or Alphonse V (French) may refer to:
Alfonso V of León (999–1028)
Alfonso V of Aragon (1416–1458), The Magnanimous
Afonso V of Portugal (), The African
Afonso V of Kongo () |
Alfonso V | Table of Content | '''Alfonso V''' |
Ambergris | Short description | thumb|upright=1.3|Ambergris in dried form
Ambergris ( or ; ; ), ambergrease, or grey amber is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. Freshly produced ambergris has a marine, fecal odor. It acquires a sweet, earthy scent as it ages, commonly likened to the fragrance of isopropyl alcohol without the vaporous chemical astringency.
Ambergris has been highly valued by perfume makers as a fixative that allows the scent to last much longer, although it has been mostly replaced by synthetic ambroxide.Panten, J. and Surburg, H. 2016. Flavors and Fragrances, 3. Aromatic and Heterocyclic Compounds. Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry. 1–45..It is sometimes used in cooking.
Dogs are attracted to the smell of ambergris and are sometimes used by ambergris searchers. |
Ambergris | Etymology | Etymology
The English word amber derives from Middle Persian ʾmbl, traveling via Arabic (), Edward Lipinski | Semitic Languages Outline of A Comparative Grammar | Department Of Oriental Studies Leuven Belgium | Assimilation stages of the word Anbar P.189 https://hcommons.org/?get_group_doc=1004138/1673969011-Lipinski_-_Semitic_Languages._Outline_of_a_Comparative_Grammar.pdf Middle Latin ambar, and Middle French ambre to be adopted in Middle English in the 14th century.
The word "ambergris" comes from the Old French ambre gris or "grey amber". The addition of "grey" came about when, in the Romance languages, the sense of the word "amber" was extended to Baltic amber (fossil resin), as white or yellow amber (ambre jaune), from as early as the late 13th century. This fossilized resin subsequently became the dominant (and now exclusive) sense of "amber", leaving "ambergris" as the word for the whale secretion.
The archaic alternate spelling "ambergrease" arose as an eggcorn from the phonetic pronunciation of "ambergris," encouraged by the substance's waxy texture. |
Ambergris | Formation | Formation
Ambergris is formed from a secretion of the bile duct in the intestines of the sperm whale, and can be found floating on the sea or washed up on coastlines. It is sometimes found in the abdomens of dead sperm whales. Because the beaks of giant squids have been discovered within lumps of ambergris, scientists have hypothesized that the substance is produced by the whale's gastrointestinal tract to ease the passage of hard, sharp objects that it may have eaten.
Ambergris is passed like fecal matter. It is speculated that an ambergris mass too large to be passed through the intestines is expelled via the mouth, but this remains under debate. Another theory states that an ambergris mass is formed when the colon of a whale is enlarged by a blockage from intestinal worms and cephalopod parts resulting in the death of the whale and the mass being excreted into the sea. Ambergris takes years to form. Christopher Kemp, the author of Floating Gold: A Natural (and Unnatural) History of Ambergris, says that it is only produced by sperm whales, and only by an estimated one percent of them. Ambergris is rare; once expelled by a whale, it often floats for years before making landfall. The slim chances of finding ambergris and the legal ambiguity involved led perfume makers away from ambergris, and led chemists on a quest to find viable alternatives.
Ambergris is found primarily in the Atlantic Ocean and on the coasts of South Africa; Brazil; Madagascar; the East Indies; The Maldives; China; Japan; India; Australia; New Zealand; and the Molucca Islands. Most commercially collected ambergris comes from the Bahamas in the Atlantic, particularly New Providence. In 2021, fishermen found a 127 kg (280-pound) piece of ambergris off the coast of Yemen, valued at US$1.5 million. Fossilised ambergris from 1.75 million years ago has also been found. |
Ambergris | Physical properties | Physical properties
Ambergris is found in lumps of various shapes and sizes, usually weighing from to or more. When initially expelled by or removed from the whale, the fatty precursor of ambergris is pale white in color (sometimes streaked with black), soft, with a strong fecal smell. Following months to years of photodegradation and oxidation in the ocean, this precursor gradually hardens, developing a dark grey or black color, a crusty and waxy texture, and a peculiar odor that is at once sweet, earthy, marine, and animalic. Its scent has been generally described as a vastly richer and smoother version of isopropanol without its stinging harshness. In this developed condition, ambergris has a specific gravity ranging from 0.780 to 0.926 (meaning it floats in water). It melts at about to a fatty, yellow resinous liquid; and at it is volatilised into a white vapor. It is soluble in ether, and in volatile and fixed oils. |
Ambergris | Chemical properties | Chemical properties
Ambergris is relatively nonreactive to acid. White crystals of a terpenoid known as ambrein, discovered by Leopold Ružička and Fernand Lardon in 1946, can be separated from ambergris by heating raw ambergris in alcohol, then allowing the resulting solution to cool. Breakdown of the relatively scentless ambrein through oxidation produces ambroxide and ambrinol, the main odor components of ambergris.
Ambroxide is now produced synthetically and used extensively in the perfume industry. |
Ambergris | Applications | Applications
Ambergris has been mostly known for its use in creating perfume and fragrance much like musk. Perfumes based on ambergris still exist.
Ambergris has historically been used in food and drink. A serving of eggs and ambergris was reportedly King Charles II of England's favorite dish. A recipe for Rum Shrub liqueur from the mid 19th century called for a thread of ambergris to be added to rum, almonds, cloves, cassia, and the peel of oranges in making a cocktail from The English and Australian Cookery Book. It has been used as a flavoring agent in Turkish coffee and in hot chocolate in 18th century Europe. The substance is considered an aphrodisiac in some cultures.
Ancient Egyptians burned ambergris as incense, while in modern Egypt ambergris is used for scenting cigarettes. The ancient Chinese called the substance "dragon's spittle fragrance". During the Black Death in Europe, people believed that carrying a ball of ambergris could help prevent them from contracting plague. This was because the fragrance covered the smell of the air which was believed to be a cause of plague.
During the Middle Ages, Europeans used ambergris as a medication for headaches, colds, epilepsy, and other ailments. |
Ambergris | Legality | Legality
From the 18th to the mid-19th century, the whaling industry prospered. By some reports, nearly 50,000 whales, including sperm whales, were killed each year. Throughout the 19th century, "millions of whales were killed for their oil, whalebone, and ambergris" to fuel profits, and they soon became endangered as a species as a result. Due to studies showing that the whale populations were being threatened, the International Whaling Commission instituted a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1982. Although ambergris is not harvested from whales, many countries also ban the trade of ambergris as part of the more general ban on the hunting and exploitation of whales.
Urine, faeces, and ambergris (that has been naturally excreted by a sperm whale) are waste products not considered parts or derivatives of a CITES species and are therefore not covered by the provisions of the convention.CITES CoP16 Com. II Rec. 2 (Rev. 1), Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Sixteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties Bangkok (Thailand), 3–14 March 2013 Summary record of the second session of Committee II
Countries where ambergris trade is illegal include:
Australia – Under federal law, the export and import of ambergris for commercial purposes is banned by the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999. The various states and territories have additional laws regarding ambergris.
United States – The possession and trade of ambergris is prohibited by the Endangered Species Act of 1973.
India – Sale or possession is illegal under the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972.
Countries where trade of ambergris is legal include:
United Kingdom
France
Switzerland
Maldives |
Ambergris | References | References |
Ambergris | Further reading | Further reading
montalvoeascinciasdonossotempo.blogspot, accessed 21 August 2015
|
Ambergris | External links | External links
Natural History Magazine Article (from 1933): Floating Gold – The Romance of Ambergris
Ambergris – A Pathfinder and Annotated Bibliography
On the chemistry and ethics of Ambergris
Pathologist finds €500,000 ‘floating gold’ in dead whale in Canary Islands
Category:Perfume ingredients
Category:Whale products
Category:Animal glandular products
Category:Natural products
Category:Traditional medicine |
Ambergris | Table of Content | Short description, Etymology, Formation, Physical properties, Chemical properties, Applications, Legality, References, Further reading, External links |
Ambiorix | short description | Ambiorix (Gaulish "king of the surroundings", or "king-protector") ( 54–53 BC) was, together with Cativolcus, prince of the Eburones, leader of a Belgic tribe of north-eastern Gaul (Gallia Belgica), where modern Belgium is located. In the nineteenth century Ambiorix became a Belgian national hero because of his resistance against Julius Caesar, as written in Caesar's Commentarii de Bello Gallico. |
Ambiorix | Name | Name
It is generally accepted that Ambiorix is a Gaulish personal name formed with the prefix ambio- attached to rix ('king'), but the meaning of the first element is debated.; ; ; ; . Some scholars translate Ambiorix as the 'king of the surroundings' or 'king of the enclosure', by interpreting ambio- as a thematized form of ambi- ('around, on both sides') meaning 'surroundings' or else 'enclosure' (cf. Old Irish imbe 'enclosure'). Alternatively, Fredrik Otto Lindeman renders Ambiorix as the 'protector-king', by deriving ambio- from the Proto-Indo-European compound ('protector'; cf. Old Indic adhi-pá- 'protector, ruler, master, king'). |
Ambiorix | Biography | Biography |
Ambiorix | Early history | Early history
In 57 BCE, Julius Caesar conquered parts of Gaul and also Belgica (Belgium, modern-day Northern France, Luxembourg, part of present-day Netherlands below the Rhine River; and the north-western portion of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany). There were several tribes in the country who fought against each other frequently. The Eburones were ruled by Ambiorix and Catuvolcus. In 54 BCE, Caesar's troops urgently needed more food, and so the local tribes were forced to give up part of their harvest, which had not been good that year. Understandably, the starving Eburones were reluctant to do so and Caesar ordered that camps be built near the Eburones' villages. Each centurion was ordered to make sure the food supplies were delivered to the Roman soldiers. This created resentment among the Eburones.
Although Julius Caesar had freed him from paying tribute to the Atuatuci, Ambiorix joined Catuvolcus in the winter of 54 BCE in an uprising against the Roman forces under Quintus Titurius Sabinus and Lucius Aurunculeius Cotta. |
Ambiorix | Resisting the Romans | Resisting the Romans
thumb|Ambiorix attacking Roman soldiers, relief at the Liège Provincial Palace
Because a drought had disrupted his grain supply, Caesar was forced to winter his legions among the rebellious Belgic tribes. Roman troops led by Sabinus and Cotta were wintering among the Eburones when they were attacked by them, led by Ambiorix and Cativolcus. Ambiorix deceived the Romans, telling them the attack was made without his consent, and further advised them to flee as a large Germanic force was preparing to cross the Rhine. Trusting Ambiorix, Sabinus and Cotta's troops left the next morning. A short distance from their camp, the Roman troops were ambushed by the Eburones and massacred.
Elsewhere, another Roman force under Quintus Tullius Cicero, younger brother of the orator Marcus, were wintering amongst the Nervii. Leading a coalition of rebellious Belgic tribes, Ambiorix surrounded Cicero's camp. After a long while, a Roman messenger was finally able to slip through the Belgic lines and get word of the uprising to Caesar. Mobilizing his legions, Caesar immediately marched to Cicero's aid. As they approached the besieged Roman camp, the Belgae moved to engage Caesar's troops. Vastly outnumbered, Caesar ordered his troops to appear confused and frightened, and they successfully lured the Belgae to attack them on ground favourable to the Romans. Caesar's forces launched a fierce counterattack, and soon put the Belgae to flight. Later, Caesar's troops entered Cicero's camp to find most of the men wounded.
Meanwhile, Indutiomarus, a leader of the Treveri, began to harass Labienus's camp daily, eventually provoking Labienus to send out his cavalry with specific orders to kill Indutiomarus. They did so, and routed the remnants of Indutiomarus's army. Caesar personally remained in Gaul for the remainder of winter due to the renewed Gallic threat. |
Ambiorix | Caesar's revenge | Caesar's revenge
When the Roman Senate became aware of the latest events, Caesar swore to destroy all the Belgic tribes. Ambiorix had killed fifteen cohorts. A Belgic attack on Cicero, then stationed with a legion in the territory of the Nervii, failed due to the timely appearance of Caesar. The Roman campaigns against the Belgae took a few years, but eventually the tribes were slaughtered or driven out and their fields burned. The Eburones disappeared from history after this genocidal event. According to the writer Florus, Ambiorix and his men succeeded in escaping across the Rhine and vanished from history.Florus, iii. 10. § 8 |
Ambiorix | Legacy | Legacy
Caesar wrote about Ambiorix in his commentary about his battles against the Gauls, De Bello Gallico. In this text he also famously wrote: "Of these [three regions], the Belgae are the bravest." ("... Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae ...").
Ambiorix remained a relatively obscure figure until the nineteenth century. The independence of Belgium in 1830 spurred a search for national heroes. In Caesar's De Bello Gallico, Ambiorix and his deeds were rediscovered. In 1841, the Belgian poet Joannes Nolet de Brauwere Van Steeland wrote a lyrical epic about Ambiorix. Furthermore, on 5 September 1866 a statue of Ambiorix was erected on the main market square in Tongeren, Belgium, referred to by Caesar as Atuatuca, i.e. Atuatuca Tungrorum.
Today, Ambiorix is one of the most famous characters in Belgian history. Many companies, bars and friteries have named themselves after him, and in many Belgian comics such as Suske en Wiske and Jommeke he plays a guest role. There was also a short-lived comic called Ambionix, which featured a scientist teleporting a Belgic chief, loosely based on Ambiorix, to modern-day Belgium. |
Ambiorix | In popular culture | In popular culture
Ambiorix leads the Gallic civilization in the New Frontier season pass of the 4X video game Civilization VI. |
Ambiorix | References | References |
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