Women-warriors in the art of the early nomad

Abstract

There are many images of mythical Amazons of the Black Sea Region. They either copied the look of the actual Early Scythians with their costume and weapons or were indeed fantastic and armed with the sacred weapon of Bronze Age - the ‘labrys’ axe. In the paper the unique and very rare images of the early nomadic women-warriors were analyzed. The images are known from several statues of the 3^rd-1^st cc. BC in Kyzyluiik and Akuiik sanctuaries in the Western Kazakhstan, on the north border of the desert Ustyurt Plateau, which were dedicated to the cult of ancestors. They are presented with daggers and dressed in the short costume of “male type” or the long dress (fig. 1, 1-3). Probably, the woman warrior were also depicted on the paired Early Scythian tombstone in Central Ciscaucasia (Meskety) (fig. 1, 4). The women symbolically touching the military belt it with their right hands. For the Early Middle Ages Turks (such as well as for closely related to them Iranian-speaking Sogdians) women-warriors are represented only in epic scenes, as a kind of a relic of the past. At the same time, the girls costume in such scenes in ethnologically correct. There is no exaggeration of details as it happens in epic texts. The participation in wars usually did not raise the women’ status in those times, it was the manifestation of exploitation (in addition to sexual and economic ones).