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The real Amazons were long believed to be purely imaginary. They were the mythical warrior women who were the archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Every Greek hero or champion, from Hercules to Theseus and Achilles, had to prove his mettle by fighting a powerful warrior queen.

The real Amazons were long believed to be purely imaginary. They were the mythical warrior women who were the archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Every Greek hero or champion, from Hercules to Theseus and Achilles, had to prove his mettle by fighting a powerful warrior queen.


Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor
Tags: Women  Knowledge  Culture  Men  Anxiety 

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Author introduction

Adrienne Mayor (born 1946) is a historian of ancient science and a classical folklorist.

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As early as 1681-82, a group of Abenakis had accompanied the French explorer La Salle on his historic voyage down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. By 1700, many Abenaki and Iroquois Indians spoke French and had some European education, and some were literate in French and Latin.

    Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor   
 Tags: Education Early Group Down Mexico
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Historical records show that Abenakis and other Natives encountered European explorers and traders in Canada looking for sources of ivory to compete with the Russian trade in Siberian fossil mammoth ivory - these traders routinely asked about ivory 'horns' and teeth.

    Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor   
 Tags: Looking Canada Teeth Trade Show
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In the seventeenth century, a French missionary in Canada reported a 'strange legend' circulating among the Hurons. They told of a monster with a 'horn' that could pierce anything, even rock.

    Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor   
 Tags: Rock Canada Legend Strange Monster
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Pergamon, a prosperous city in western Anatolia, was fabled to have been founded by Hercules' son. Like many Hellenistic cities populated by Greeks who intermarried with indigenous people, Pergamon after Alexander the Great's death (323 B.C.) had evolved a hybrid of democracy and Persian-influenced monarchy.

    Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor   
 Tags: Son Death Great City Democracy Like
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The cultural center of Asia Minor, Pergamon boasted a vast library of 200,000 scrolls, a spectacular 10,000-seat theater, and a monumental Great Altar decorated with sculptures of the Olympian gods defeating the Giants. People came from all around the Mediterranean seeking cures at the famous Temple of Asclepius, god of medicine.

    Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor   
 Tags: God Great People Famous Medicine
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The Romans had chosen Pergamon to be the capital of their new province. But by 88 B.C., most of western Asia was allied with King Mithradates, who had taken over the royal palace in Pergamon for his own headquarters.

    Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor   
 Tags: King Royal New Own Over Chosen
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The Ephesians took great pride in their temple, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Amazons had worshipped here, and the fabulously rich King Croesus built the original temple.

    Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor   
 Tags: Great Pride King World Rich Temple
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The Greeks first identified the Amazons ethnographically, as a nation of men and women distinguished by something outstanding in their gender relations. Later, any ambivalence or anxiety that knowledge of this alternative gender-neutral culture evoked among Greeks was played out in their mythic narratives about martial women.

    Adrienne Mayor  Adrienne Mayor   
 Tags: Women Knowledge Culture Men Anxiety
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