Co-Geeking

Amazons, the bold warrior women who figure in Greek myths, are imaginary, but the myths about them likely had their origin in Greek experiences with actual fighting women in the cultures around the shores of the Black Sea. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence shows that women who trained with weapons and fought in battle were known in many of the cultures in the region, and the association of mythic Greek Amazons with horses and bows also matches the realities of life on the Black Sea steppes.

Greek literature and art records numerous Amazon names. Most of these names are Greek, and they are descriptive of relevant Amazon traits, such as Hippolyta (“She who sets the horses loose”), Melanippe (“Black horse”) or Antiope (“She who confronts”). These names may have been simply invented by Greek writers in the same way that fantasy authors today concoct suitable names for their characters. There is evidence, however, that some of the Amazon names recorded in Greek art might be actual names from languages spoken around the Black Sea.

This Greek pottery fragment shows Amazons riding into battle against the Greek hero Heracles (who appears accompanied by the god Hermes on the other side of the cup). We can recognize the riders as Amazons from their clothing and the bowcases they carry. Text in Greek letters surrounds them, although it is painted in a dark color that is difficult to see. Most of the text is fragmentary and hard to reconstruct, but one word seems to be a complete name. The text PKPUPES can be read by the head of the leftmost rider, evidently her name.

“Pkpupes,” at first glance, may look like mere gibberish. It certainly isn’t Greek. Many scholars in the past dismissed this and similar texts as nonsense words written by semi-literate vase painters. Maybe “pkupupes” was just an attempt at an onomatopoeic for the pounding of a horse’s hooves. It may, however, be something more significant.

Dense clusters of hard consonants like “pkp” are a common feature of languages spoken today in the Caucasus Mountains east of the Black Sea. “Pkpupes” is, in fact, fairly easy to read as an attempt to render a name in Circassian, a cluster of closely related languages of the northwestern Caucasus, with the letters of ancient Greek, which did not perfectly match up to the sounds of the original language. English doesn’t have all the right letters to easily represent the sounds of Circassian either, but a reconstructed Circassian name that would be rendered in English something like “Pqp’upush” is perfectly intelligible. This name is composed of several elements, the first referring to the body, the next to covering, and the final one connoting worthiness. Altogether, the name would mean “Worthy to wear armor,” a suitable name for a warrior woman.

Greeks had extensive contact with peoples around the Black Sea. Many Greeks migrated to the region, and people from the area also settled in Greece. The painter of this vase signed his name “Oltos,” which is not a typical Greek name, and he may have been an immigrant himself. He and other ancient vase painters may well have known people who spoke foreign languages or had ancestors from the Black Sea region who could recommend appropriately authentic names for Amazon characters. It may even be that some of the obviously Greek Amazon names like Hippolyta or Antiope were not invented by Greeks but are Greek translations of authentic names, in the same way that the names of many indigenous Americans in recent history have been translated into English, like Sitting Bull or Red Cloud.

The Amazons of Greek myth remain mythical, but we have evidence for some history behind that myth, maybe even the names of some real warrior women from the edges of the world known to the Greeks.

Source

Adrienne Mayor, John Colarusso, and David Saunders, “Making Sense of Nonsense Inscriptions Associated with Amazons and Scythians on Athenian Vases,” Hesperia 83, no. 3 (July-September 2014): 447-93.

History for Writers looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool, from worldbuilding to dialogue.