FIERCE RIDERS OF THE STEPPES

Some historians have argued that the Greeks mistook certain male barbarian warriors for women. But this idea is unlikely—even a child would find it hard to be deceived by this because there are always corpses after any battle, and Greek military customs required the gathering of trophies from the defeated. Stripping weapons and equipment from fallen enemies would naturally reveal their gender.

Other researchers believed that the Amazons were purely symbolic figures, akin to centaursicreatures with the head and torso of a human and the body of a horse and that looking for historical prototypes was futile. However, archaeological evidence suggests otherwise. Military gear has often been found in female burial sites across the Eurasian steppes. Attributing these findings to exceptions and cultic whims would be, at the very least, unscientific.

In the early twenty-first century, we are finally beginning to recognize a historical fact: among the Iranian peoples of Eurasia, female warrior communities did indeed exist, and echoes of this tradition survived at least until the Middle Ages. However, mere recognition doesn't automatically lead to understanding, nor does it unravel the mysteries of these myths. We should explore which elements of these myths are based on historical facts, which underwent mystical reinterpretations, and which are mere distortions.

A world that dismisses Amazons as mere fairy tales denies not only a woman's right to bear arms but also the existence of a vast and diverse range of social structures and organizational forms. Conversely, a world where discussions about Amazons can be taken seriously is one ready to embrace and acknowledge its own cultural diversity.

The Greek tradition about the Amazons isn't a single, cohesive collection of stories but rather a varied and contradictory tapestry of numerous tales and fragments. These can be categorized into two parts: the symbolic, metaphorical legends passed down to us in poetic works and the more grounded ethnographic descriptions left by ancient historians. However, facts often intertwine with legend, making it challenging to discern one from the other.

Not too long ago, the entire history of the Trojan Waribetween the Achaean city states of Greece and the small Trojan kingdom in Asia Minor was deemed fictional. Today, we know this isn't the case. Storytellers drew inspiration from actual events in Asia Minor during the 13th century BCE. We also know that Homer (whoever he may have been), an ancient Greek poet and storyteller (8th–7th centuries BCE), the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, did not compose his poems "from scratch" but relied on a plethora of earlier narratives, not limited to those of Greek origin: cultural exchange among the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean was quite intensive.

While the main narrative of the "Iliad" doesn't include clashes between Greeks and Amazons, one of The King of Troy, Priam's monologues, references a battle between Amazons and Phrygians. Homer also mentions the tomb of the Amazon queen, "Swift Mirina." In another passage, there's a passing mention of the victory achieved by the hero Bellerophon over an army of Amazons: in his first feat, he slays the monstrous Chimera with the head of a lion, the body of a dragon, and the hindquarters of a goat.

"After the war, he went to the Solymi, a renowned people ... In his third feat, he vanquished the man-like Amazons."

This passage notably differs from the first two rather mundane mentions: it possesses all the characteristics of a heroic legend, where the Amazons and the Solymi—one of the indigenous peoples of Asia Minor—are placed on par with fantastical creatures. In other words, even during Homer's time, the Greeks perceived the Amazons twofold: as a somewhat real community, one of the bright spots on the diverse map of surrounding tribes and peoples, yet also as an existential adversary, powerful and monstrous.

This duality persisted throughout the entire ancient era. The myth of the Amazons remained popular, and later authors have transmitted its details to us. The Greeks considered Ares, the god of war, as the progenitor of the Amazons, who fell in love with the nymph Otrera. Several warrior daughters were born from this union, laying the foundation for the Amazonian lineage. They are directly or indirectly featured in almost all myths related to the formation of the Greek world: they fought alongside Heracles and Theseus, besieged Athens, and participated on the side of King Priam in the Trojan War. After Alexander the Great's Asian campaign,ithe Greek king, creator of the empire (356–323 BC) when a new prominent figure appeared in the pantheon of Greek heroes, the legend of the Amazonian Queen Thalestris emerged, who allegedly offered to conceive a child with the great commander.

At the same time, the Amazons frequently appear in the pages of entirely realistic works. The most famous of these is Herodotus'si"Father of History," ancient Greek historian of the 5th century BCE "Histories". The great historian recounts the legend of the origin of the steppe tribe of the Sauromatians. According to legend, they were descendants of the Amazons, who took Scythian warriors as their husbands. "Since then, Sauromatian women have preserved their ancient customs: they ride out on hunts together with their husbands or even without them, join campaigns, and wear the same clothing as men," writes Herodotus. "As for their marriage customs, here is what they are: a girl does not marry until she has killed an enemy. Some die as old maids, never having married, because they cannot fulfill this custom."

To comprehend the role of the Amazons in the Greek psyche, one must also delve into the visual arts. In both sculpture and vase painting, they ranked among the most popular subjects, and following the Greco-Persian Wars, this popularity soared. Amazonomachy—a battle between Greek heroes and a host of Amazons—adorned the frieze of the Parthenon, Athens' principal temple. Scenes of mythical battles often graced sarcophagi: episodes from the Trojan War, the Olympian gods' struggle against giants, and, naturally, clashes between Greeks and courageous horsewomen clad in barbarian attire.

All these battles aren't merely captivating mythical events; they serve as symbols that ancient spectators used to comprehend the world's order and the evolution of Greek religion. Whether the battle of gods and giants, the Trojan War, or the Amazonomachy, they were phenomena of the same magnitude, albeit varying in scale. Observing global processes, the Greeks witnessed constant conflict—between cosmic forces, epochs, generations, cultures, and the diverse qualities of human nature. Within this unceasing struggle, there were victors and vanquished, but no unequivocally negative or positive characters. "War is the king of all, the father of all," said the philosopher Heraclitus,iAncient Greek philosopher of the 6th to 5th centuries BCE alluding not only to political conflicts, which give birth to nations and states but also to the perpetual struggle of natural forces around and within humanity.

In this ceaseless turmoil of eternal struggle, which Greek culture deemed as the foundation of order, the Amazons represented absolute barbarism. Indeed, their image embodied everything deemed unacceptable in patriarchal Greek society. Ancient Athenian women lacked political rights, and their involvement in warfare was inconceivable. Spartan women, more emancipated, occasionally participated in state affairs, but their rights still didn’t match those imbued to men. A social structure where women held active roles was perceived by the Greeks as part of a topsy-turvy, upside-down world—or, more aptly, as an anti-world, hostile and destructive to their established order.

The conflict between Hellenism and barbarism, and between the Olympic religion and the cults of neighboring peoples, was likened to a "war of the sexes" between man and woman, where participation—whether spiritual or physical—was a mandatory test of valor. Therefore, after defeating the fearsome Chimera, another symbol of foreign beliefs, the Homeric hero Bellerophon had to confront the Amazons.

Neverthelesss, the polytheistic worldview did not entail a categorically negative attitude towards opponents. While overcoming barbarian cults, the Greeks did not seek to completely eradicate them but rather reinterpreted and assimilated their elements. The Gorgon Medusa—an ancient Mediterranean goddess—transformed in Greek legends into a monster vanquished by the hero Perseus, yet her image continued to adorn temples, altars, household items, and jewelry. Now, she was assigned the role of a demonic protector, warding off evil. Trojan heroes—Priam, Hector, Sarpedon, and even the frivolous Paris—were revered just as much as mighty Achilles, wise Nestor, and cunning Odysseus. Even the Persians, who inflicted immense damage on Greek cities, were depicted with respect and a hint of sympathy. A similar fate befell the Amazons: in the flexible and tolerant worldview of the Greeks, there was a place not only for horror but also for admiration.

The ancient authors' accounts of the homeland of the Amazons are contradictory: some claimed they lived on the eastern shores of the Aegean Sea, others said their territories were near the river Thermodon in northern present-day Turkey, and yet others placed their kingdom in the steppes of the North Black Sea region, inhabited by Scythians, Sarmatians, and many other nomadic herders known for their warlike nature. According to one version, there were even LibyaniAncients referred to Africa as Libya Amazons. All these data, seemingly, do not fit together into a coherent picture. However, most ancient writers still associated the Amazons with the shores of the Black Sea. In turn, in ancient India, there was a legend about a certain "female kingdom" whose location roughly coincided with the Asian Scythia of Herodotus.1¹Penrose W. D. Postcolonial Amazons: Female Masculinity and Courage in Ancient Greek and Sanskrit Literature. — Oxford, 2016. P. 190. If we try to imagine the geography of these stories as a historical map, it will more or less coincide with the area of ​​cultural influence of Iranian tribes - the only exception would be Libya.2²PresumablyPresumably, the myth of the Libyan Amazons reflects the Greeks' acquaintance with Berber tribes, where elements of matriarchal structure were preserved.

The origin of the word "Amazons" is not definitively established, but the most compelling hypothesis at present is that it is a distorted form of the Iranian.iha-mazan-, meaning "warriors." Herodotus provides the Scythian name for the Amazons as oiorpata, which, in his opinion, meant "man-killers." It is quite possible that the great historian did not err in writing this word, but modern researchers suggest that his translation may not be entirely accurate. Only scattered words from the Scythian language have reached us, but with the help of related Iranian languages, we can shed some light on their meaning. If oior is derived from the same root as the Avestan (Old Persian) vira - "man," then pata can be linked to pati - "lord," and thus the Scythian word is translated as "ladies ruling over men." Patriarchal Greeks would indeed have preferred death to such (as they perceived it) disgrace.

The vague hints found in written sources wouldn't hold any scientific weight without tangible and measurable archaeological data. Burial monuments emerge as the primary source here: finds discovered during the excavation of dwellings, disconnected from their owners, and those from sanctuaries and temples require a special, religious interpretation, while depictions could be products of imagination. In a grave, a person appears before the researcher in all their nakedness, both biological and social. The only way to prove or refute the existence of female warriors is to study female burials in the relevant territories.

From the outset of their study, the necropolises of the steppe region of the Black Sea yielded rich material. To scholars and then to the wider public, treasures from the Melgunov burial mound, Chertomlyk, Kul-Oba, Solokha, and other burials of Scythian kings were revealed. From semi-mythical peoples that existed only on the pages of books, the Iranian tribes of the Eurasian steppe became real cultures—developed and unique, not primitive. As archaeology shifted away from mere "treasure hunting" toward a full-fledged science of humanity's material culture, attention began to be paid to ordinary burials. Occasionally, strange artifacts were found, like weaponry, in female graves. But drawing far-reaching conclusions from this was premature.

By now, extensive statistics have been compiled, vividly demonstrating that weapons found in the burials of Scythian, Sarmatian, and Sauromatian women are not random occurrences or exceptions but rather entirely traditional elements. For instance, in the necropolis of ancient Tanais,iAn ancient city in the delta of the Don the number of such burials reaches 25–30%. In the Lower Volga region, about 20% of Sarmatian warrior burials were female.3³Gulyaev V.I. Amazons in Scythia: New Finds at the Middle Don, Southern Russia // World Archaeology 35, 2002. Pp. 112–125. The range of weapons is quite broad, mainly including spears, javelins, arrows, knives, quivers, and preserved elements of armor—the exact same set observed in male burials. Rich burials often contain elements from horse harnesses—a characteristic cavalry attribute. According to the beliefs of ancient Indo-Europeans, the soul of a deceased warrior journeyed to the afterlife mounted on a warhorse. However, in many graves with these military attributes, typically feminine items such as beads and mirrors coexist. The women remained women, and grieving relatives treated both sides of the life of the dearly departed —-military and civilian—with equal respect.

In the 1990s, a Russian-American expedition conducted excavations of the burial mounds Pokrovka-1 and Pokrovka-2, located in the southern Urals steppe near the Kazakhstan border. In total, about 180 Sauromatian and Sarmatian burials were excavated. About 75% of the female graves contained classic "housewife" attributes—mirrors, spindles, spinning wheels. Some of the rich burials clearly belonged to priestesses. However, 15% of women possessed weapons, and they seemingly began training in their use at a young age. In one of the graves, a sixteen-year-old girl was buried alongside an iron sword-akinak and forty arrowheads.4⁴Davis-Kimball J.Davis-Kimball J. Warrior Women: An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines. — New York, 2002.

During the excavation of mound No. 20 in the Khodny Yar tract on the right bank of the Dnieper, a grave was found, one look at which would have made any Greek's hair stand on end: there lay a noblewoman, at her feet, perpendicular to her body, lay the half-scorched skeleton of a man. Next to the woman were 47 arrowheads and the remnants of a quiver.5⁵Pokrovska Y.F. Pokrovska Y.F. IV Century BC Barrows near Kholodny Yar near the City of Smila Archaeology — 1957 — Kharkov. Покровська Є. Ф. Кургани IV ст. до н.е. біля Холодного Яру поблизу м. Сміли Археологія — 1957 — Х.

Despite these discoveries, some Russian researchers still adhere to the stereotypical belief that they are unrelated to real military activities and are purely of a cultic nature. However, there is at least one reliable indication that distinguishes warrior’s graves from those of "civilians" : traces of combat injuries. Women buried in warrior tombs indeed exhibit characteristic fractures, cranial traumas, and arrowheads lodged in bones, and their joints are often deformed from horseback riding—much like male cavalrymen. All this evidence cannot simply be dismissed as a " beautiful, ancient custom."

Around the 11th century BCE, Persians— a union of Iranian-speaking tribes related to the Scythians and Sauromatians— migrated to the territory of present-day Iran. Coming into contact with the cultures of ancient eastern civilizations such as Babylon, Assyria, and Elam, the Persian nomads learned numerous sciences, arts, and crafts, mastered writing, and saw examples of developed states. In 550–530 BCE, the Persian king Cyrus the Great from the Achaemenid dynasty founded one of the most powerful empires of antiquity, which at its peak stretched from the shores of the Aegean Sea to India.

Modern pop culture often portrays Persian kings as despotic tyrants with sadistic tendencies, as seen in the depiction of Xerxes in the movie "300." However, the reality was quite different: the Achaemenids were educated and astute politicians. They adeptly balanced between strict rule and liberalism, refraining from imposing their worldview on conquered peoples and readily adopting their achievements. The culture of the Persian Empire was marked by its complexity and diverse traditions. Innovations and borrowings coexisted seamlessly with ancient customs, possibly originating from the Eurasian steppe, where female emancipation, uncommon in the East, may have begun. Persian women enjoyed freedoms such as the right to enter marriage by choice, they also could own land, conduct independent economic activities, travel alone, and have personal servants, whereas female members of the royal dynasty joined men in official receptions and, naturally, directly or indirectly managed some state affairs.

While it's possible that some notable Persian women dedicated their lives to military pursuits, such a group, if it existed, was likely small. However, Persian kings were not averse to the assistance of barbarian female warriors from other cultures. Among the closest allies of King Xerxes I was Artemisia, the ruler of CariaiCaria - a region in southwestern Asia Minor — the first known female admiral in history.

Artemisia, with remarkable intelligence and a keen understanding of power dynamics, attempted in September 480 BC to dissuade the Persian ruler from engaging in a naval battle with the Greeks. However, Xerxes did not heed her advice. She was compelled to participate in the Battle of Salamis, where the Persian fleet suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Greeks. When the hopelessness of the situation became apparent, Artemisia ordered the lowering of Persian flags and rammed a passing allied ship. The Greeks assumed that Artemisia had defected to their side and refrained from attacking her. Thus, the queen saved her own life and that of her sailors.

Subsequently, she advised Xerxes to refrain from personally participating in the war against the Greeks and to delegate command to the general Mardonius: "If anything happens to Mardonius, it doesn't matter, and even if the Greeks defeat him, it won't be a victory, as they will only defeat your servant."i Histories. VIII, 100–103. Mardonius' campaign indeed ended in disaster: his army was defeated, and he himself perished in the Battle of Plataea.

Xerxes admired Artemisia's strategic thinking and was even willing to entrust her with his most valuable possessions—his sons. However, to properly appreciate her personal qualities, one needed to belong to a culture where a female warrior and politician were viewed not as an aberration but as a natural phenomenon. It is impossible to imagine a woman commanding Greek warships. Artemisia's role prompts reflection on the status of women among the tribes of Asia Minor.

Greek sources often attributed the founding of cities to the Amazons. But, these cities were actually established by peoples of the Hittite-Luwian linguistic group.iThe Hittites, who also spoke the Luwian language, founded the oldest state in Asia Minor around 1800 BCE. For example, the Greeks attributed the construction of Ephesus, famous for its Temple of Artemis, to an Amazon queen.

However, archaeological evidence suggests that the city was founded by Hittites, Carians, and Leleges. These peoples' religions prominently featured the Mother Goddess, with women often holding key priestly roles. Additionally, Iranian tribes of the Eurasian steppes had contact with the peoples of Asia Minor. Perhaps the ancient authors were not entirely mistaken, and the nomadic steppe tribes indeed adopted some traditions from their southern Black Sea neighbors. Or perhaps they shared commonalities in social structure from the outset?

Regardless, during Xerxes' reign, local women still enjoyed significant rights. The Achaemenid Empire's downfall came in 331 BC when Alexander the Great's army defeated Darius III at the Battle of Gaugamela. Following Alexander's death, several states emerged in the former Persian Empire, ruled by military commanders from the Macedonian army. These regions experienced a cultural shift, embracing Greek customs and traditions. However, it seems the customs of Persian women remained largely unchanged.

Around 250 BC, a significant new state led by an ancient Iranian dynasty emerged on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea. This was the Parthian Empire, founded by the military leader Arsaces. In 2004, Iranian media reported a crucial discovery: DNA analysis indicated that a woman was buried in one of the military graves from the Parthian era. Unfortunately, the authenticity of this information cannot be verified. Numerous speculations and fakes on this topic have circulated on the internet for over ten years, including stories about "princesses" who supposedly commanded the Parthian army but, in fact, never existed.

By the 3rd century AD, the Parthian Empire was in decline, worn down by constant wars with Rome and internal conflicts. Meanwhile, in the ancient province of Pars, which gave Persia its name, a new political force emerged. Led by Ardashir, the grandson of Sasan, a descendant of an ancient priestly lineage, this force first seized power in Pars and then engaged in a struggle with the Parthian king himself. In April 224 AD, the rebel Ardashir achieved victory and laid the foundation for his own ruling dynasty—the Sassanids.

Sassanid Iran became a military-economic marvel of its time: within just a few years, the weakened and conflict-ridden state transformed into a truly great power. Even the mighty Romans hesitated to engage in conflict with the new Iranian king and exhibited remarkable diplomacy during negotiations.

However, avoiding a major war was impossible. Throughout its existence, the Sassanid dynasty fought with varying success against the Roman Empire and its successor, Byzantium. The history of these wars is well-documented in chronicles, and on their pages, mentions of women arise again—this time not semi-legendary but quite prosaic.

Byzantine chronicler John Zonaras recounts that in 260 AD, after the battle between the Romans and the Sassanid king Shapur I, the bodies of women dressed in men's clothingiPseudo-Hippocrates. Περί Αέρων, Υδάτων, Τόπων. 22. Works of this anonymous author were long attributed to Hippocrates, the founder of medical science. were found on the battlefield. Orator Libanius mentioned the presence of female warriors in the army of Shapur II. It is possible that women's roles in war at this time were limited to supportive functions. However, alongside these notions, more romantic ideas also existed: in pre-Islamic Persian poetry, the image of a female warrior was highly popular. Mighty Gordafarid and proud Goshasp Banu may not have reflected any realities of life, but the popular sympathy for such heroines was not incidental. The ancient tradition transformed into weak, gradually fading reflections. The Arab conquest of Iran in the 7th century and the establishment of the Islamic religion became a turning point in the history of Persian culture. Yet even in these new circumstances, the memory of women warriors was not completely erased, and its traces have survived to this day.

If Iranian tribes of Eurasia granted women such freedom of expression, was there a similar social institution for men? If a woman (though not just any) could mount a warhorse and take up arms, could a man be retrained as a homemaker? This question may seem sarcastic, but apparently, such practices did exist. Describing the Scythians, Herodotus reports: "The Scythians have many soothsayers... The Enarees—men who are like women—say that the gift of prophecy has been granted to them by Aphrodite. They divine using a linden bark. This bark they cut into three parts, and they wind the strips around their fingers, and then they unroll them again, and in so doing, they make their predictions."

Pseudo-Hippocrates (traditionally associated with an important treatise on the Scythians, "On Airs, Waters, and Places," attributed to the renowned physician of the 5th–4th centuries BCE) provides a more precise transliteration of the Scythian word - anarii (ἀναριεῖς), which can be reconstructed as anarya, meaning "non-man."iPseudo-Hippocrates. Περί Αέρων, Υδάτων, Τόπων. 22. Works of this anonymous author were long attributed to Hippocrates, the founder of medical science. According to him, these "non-men" behaved like women and engaged in women's work, yet they were highly esteemed and respected by their fellow tribesmen. Despite the modern temptation to interpret this information differently, "woman-like men" should not be seen as fashionable youths in bright attire but rather as a special caste of priests—specifically, those known in ethnographic science as "shamans of the transformed gender." During their initiation, they actually assumed the role of the opposite gender and lived their entire lives accordingly. This internal and external metamorphosis, occasionally including physiologicaliSometimes, such priests practiced ritual self-castration; it is not excluded that they also used folk methods of hormonal therapy with herbs and animal products. However, what Scythian shamans applied from this is still unknown. adjustments, allegedly brought them to a unique transitional state, receptive to the "subtle realm" of spirits.

But if the soothsayers-enarees were considered "transformed into women," does this mean that the so-called Amazons were considered "transformed into men"? Perhaps their community also held a priestly status? These questions can only be answered with a vague "possibly." It's conceivable that numerous myths about temples and sanctuaries founded by the Amazons hint at their priestly function. It's also plausible that the legend claiming the Amazons supposedly cut or cauterized their breasts contains echoes of certain initiations, although there is no evidence to support this.

However, there is at least one historical figure who truly resembles a "shaman of the transformed gender," but she comes from another area of the Iranian world, the Kingdom of Pontus, located in the Southern Black Sea region. In 2004, a tombstone with a strange inscription was found on the Taman Peninsula: "Hypsicrates, wife of Mithridates Eupator Dionysus".iMehl A., Makhlayuk A., Gabelko O. A Historical and Epigraphic Commentary on Hypsicrateia’s Epitaph // Ruthenia Classica Aetatis Novae: A Collection of Works by Russian Scholars in Ancient Greek and Roman History. — Stuttgart, 2023. P. 175. Mithridates VI Eupator, a powerful king of mixed Greco-Persian origin, ruled in the Black Sea region from 120 to 63 BCE and became famous for his relentless war against the Romans. The discovery of his wife's tomb is not surprising in itself, but the combination of a male name with the word "wife" looks extremely odd. It's impossible to suspect a spelling mistake: the female form of this name, "Hypsicratea," differed by several letters. Fortunately, information about the person for whom the tombstone was intended has been preserved in written sources. “The Queen Hypsicratea, too loved her husband Mithradates, with all the stops of affection let out, and for his sake, she thought it a pleasure to change the outstanding splendor of her beauty for a masculine style. For she cut her hair and habituated herself to horse and arms so that she might more easily participate in his tools and danger.”iValerius Maximus. Factorum et dictorum memorabilium libri. VI, 6. reports the Roman writer Valerius Maximus.

As a person from a different cultural background, the Roman attempted to explain the "strangeness" of the queen by her attachment to her husband, but in light of what we already know about the traditions of Iranian tribes, this explanation appears primitive. Apparently, Hypsocrates(ea), the granddaughter of a Sarmatian queen, underwent some initiation ritual into the "Amazons," and the ritual change of name to a male one emphasized her special social status. Contemporary research often endeavors to interpret these customs through the lens of gender theory, employing terms like "transgender" and "gender fluidity." However, the extent of their accuracy remains uncertain.

However, it's important to remember that ancient people didn't see themselves in that light. Their self-awareness wasn't shaped by what we now call "gender expression" and "self-identification." Religion held the most significant place in their value system: not individualistic desires, but tradition, symbol, and ritual. Human life was a continuous chain of initiations, rites, and transformations. A warrior who symbolically transformed into a totemic ancestor before battle — for instance, a wolf or a bear — and a priest who wore women's clothing weren't concerned about how others would perceive them. Instead, they focused on the mystical power they would gain and how their role in the cosmos would change.

There are truly no independent sciences. At each stage of human society's development, factors distort our perception of scientific data: political trends, stereotypes, prejudices, and false hopes. Pursuing trends harms the process of acquiring knowledge as much as conservative stubbornness. "Socially dangerous" topics, such as the issue of the Amazons, have suffered the most from our biases.

Some scholars vigorously ignore facts, while others fantasize unrestrainedly to fit the facts into their hypotheses. Finding objective and balanced research is not always easy. However, the volume of accumulated material is increasing. Thanks to technological progress, new methods are emerging that allow for extracting maximum information from archaeological finds. Not so long ago, gender determination of remains was based on conventional measurements, often with significant errors. Today, this can be done through genetic analysis, and the results are sometimes astonishing. For example, it was found that the Viking buried with rich weaponry and two horses in the famous grave Bj 581 in Birka (Sweden) was a woman.iHedenstierna-Jonson Ch., Kjellström A., Zachrisson T., Krzewińska M., Sobrado V., Price N., Günther T., Jakobsson M., Götherström A. A female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics // American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 164 (4), 2017. Pp. 853–860. After this discovery, some pages of the Icelandic sagas no longer seem so mythical.

The findings from excavations continue to expand our understanding and challenge outdated hypotheses more effectively than any critic. In 2019, at the Devitsa V burial site in the Middle Don region, archaeologists uncovered the burial of four Scythian women alongside various weapons and horse harnesses. One of them wore a golden headdress — a kalaf, indicating an exceptionally high, and most likely, even priestly status of the deceased. In the center of the tomb, clear traces of a bronze cauldron were found (the cauldron itself had been stolen by looters in ancient times). These cauldrons had a ritual purpose and were traditionally placed in the graves of wealthy Scythians. Archaeologists had long considered them to be exclusively male attributes, but after this recent discovery, it seems more fitting to replace the term "male" with "military," irrespective of gender.

The legend of the counterparts of the Amazons, feminine priestesses-enarees, also finds indirect confirmation.

In Scythian-Sarmatian burial sites, there are instances of male burials containing typically feminine tools and, at times, even women's cult attire. This does not mean that all accounts from ancient writers should be taken at face value. However, such discoveries certainly indicate that the social structure of Iranian-speaking tribes was much more intricate than previously thought. Gender did not dictate one's occupation, and religious beliefs may have allowed, or even mandated, transitioning between social groups. Some scholars interpret these findings as residual traces of matriarchy — a social structure where women held leadership roles. Yet, this perspective lacks sufficient evidence to be conclusive.

The boundless expanses of the steppe still harbor many secrets. Beneath the imposing mounds of burial sites and within the modest earthen graves lie nomads whose love for freedom impressed even the haughty Greeks. Even if the tales of the Amazons were purely fictional, devoid of any truth, they would still effectively embody the inner strength of the steppe peoples, their stern commitment to democracy, and their martial spirit. However, there are no myths that are entirely fabricated. To unravel their meaning, one must discern the reality interwoven within the myth — and this reality is structured in an even more intriguing manner than the most captivating myth.