Hoards of large, broad single-blade bronze axe heads have been unearthed in archaeological sites (ca. 1250-650 BC) of ancient Colchis (Georgia). These were once called “Amazon axes” by scholars, but by the seventh century BC these heavy axes were replaced by smaller bronze axes much like those carried by Amazons shown in Greek vase paintings.20
In a legend preserved by Plutarch, when Heracles took Hippolyte’s golden belt, he also carried away her battle-axe, which he presented to
Another powerful mythical queen, Omphale of Lydia. (To atone for a murder, Heracles served as Omphale’s sex slave for a year, but that’s another story.) Queen Hippolyte’s axe, says Plutarch, was handed down from Omphale to the kings of Lydia. That is, until King Candaules (d. 718 BC) disrespected the Amazon’s axe and carelessly gave it away. Hippolyte’s precious axe ultimately ended up in the Temple of Zeus at Labranda in Caria. The original axe shape was not specified in the tale, but by the time it was placed in Zeus’s temple it was described as a solid gold labrys, the symmetrical double-headed ritual axe traditionally associated with Zeus and Minoan goddesses (see fig. 6.4 For an example in the hands of a Thracian woman). The labrys has been adopted as a symbol by modern “matriarchy-goddess” feminists and lesbians who admire Amazons. Ironically, however, the labrys does not resemble a sagaris, a differently shaped pointed battle-axe more typically carried by Amazons and Scythians in ancient art and literature and found buried with armed women in Scythian kurgans.21
The sagaris (a Scythian word) was a small but lethal iron or bronze battle-axe, asymmetrical, usually with a rounded cutting blade or a blunt butt on one end and an ice pick-1 ike point on the other end. Sharp and top-heavy on a long wooden handle, the battle-axe did not require great forearm strength to inflict serious injury. Once the weapon is swung or even thrown, the weight of the axe head does the rest.
Long before Heracles left his bow to Scythes, Scythian lore claimed that a golden cup and a golden sagaris were among the objects that magically fell from the sky and were taken up by the first Scythians. This tale comes from Herodotus, who noted that the Massagetae and the Pointed Hat Saka also used pointed battle-axes of bronze and gold. Strabo described the weapons of the Amazons as the bow, javelin, and sagaris. That the Greeks strongly associated the sagaris with Amazons is evident in Xenophon’s firsthand description of a Persian captive’s “bow and quiver and sagaris of the same sort that Amazons carry.”22
Archaeological evidence confirms that pointed axes similar to those depicted in ancient art were used by Scythian female and male warriors who were contemporaries of the ancient Greeks. Many bronze pointed axe heads, some with butts in the form of boars, griffins, and other animals, have been recovered from Scythian burials (Figs. 4.2, 13.4). Several pointed axes were found in Arzhan Kurgan, including a
Slim iron sagaris covered with intricate swirls of inlaid gold next to the couple in Arzahn 2. Pointed axes were also recovered from fifth-century BC Pazyryk burials in the Altai in 2006-7; and a sagaris was buried with one of the young women warriors at Tillya Tepe (chapter 4).23
Graphic physical evidence testifies to this weapon’s dire effect. Analysis of the punctured skulls of the sacrificed horses in Pazyryk kurgans and the traumatic head injuries in a number of Scythian warriors’ skulls shows that they were struck down with pointed battle-axes. “The occurrence of pointed axe injuries” suggests “the widespread use of the pointed battle-axe amongst the tribes of the Scythian World,” notes bioarchaeologist Eileen Murphy. In the oldest known “Amazon” burial (Semo Awtschala, near Tbilisi, Georgia, ca. 1000 BC; fig. 4.1), for example, the skull of the warrior woman with her sword on her knees and lance at her feet had been pierced by a pointed axe. Twelve Scythian warriors (Tuva, southern Siberia) have holes in their skulls consistent with pointed axes (see fig. 4.3). One was a woman between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five; the position of her wound (left parietal, as with several of the males) indicates that she was “directly facing [her] opponent during an episode of violence,” probably combat.24
The first appearance of Amazons carrying battle-axes in vase paintings occurred in the mid-sixth century BC, in works by the Painter of Munich. Along with the bow, the sagaris became a classic Amazon weapon (Plate 12, Figs. 8.1, 11.4, 13.8, 15.1, 16.2). Many red-figure vase paintings depict Amazons poised to whack Greek warriors with the pointed ends of their battle-axes, like those found in armed women’s graves. An example is a vase by Euphronios (ca. 510 BC) showing an Amazon in a woven, striped jumpsuit and Scythian cap with a decorated quiver, holding a small recurve bow and a pointed battle-axe. Another vase (ca. 450 BC, by Polygnotus) shows Achilles dueling with Queen Penthesilea. Clad in striped trousers, belted tunic, and soft cap, Penthesilea has dropped her bow for intense hand-to-hand combat and is swinging her pointed battle-axe with both hands. A woman’s perfume vase (Fig. 8.2) features Penthesilea carrying a Scythian bow, two arrows, and her trusty pointed battle-axe.25
Who invented this quintessential weapon wielded by Scythian male and female warriors with devastating skill? The European compiler of a sixteenth-century compendium of the history of weapons was astounded
To learn from an earlier medieval treatise that such a “manly weapon” as the pointed battle-axe “was invented by a tribe of women.” What was the source of this idea that Amazons invented the sagaris? It must have come from Pliny the Elder (first century AD), who listed the mythic and historical inventors of various technologies, gathered from even older texts. Pliny names the legendary inventor of the pointed battle-axe: it was none other than Queen Penthesilea.
World History
