"Amazon horse archers" Topic

more pics and discussion on my blog.
link
Do you think the Amazons described in Greek myth have a real world basis?
Would anybody really cut off a breast to be better at archery?
If you were going to send women into battle, what kind of soldiers would you make them?

Great work

There is some archeological work suggesting women warriors about the same time as the Sycthians

Given the state of Ancient Greek surgery I don't see anyone cutting anything off voluntarily

As to what kind of soldiers, I would think archers and light infantry – probably not hoplites!

Pursuit light cavalry -- riding down defeated foes with relentless pressure, peppering them with arrows, and harassing them to their ultimate destruction.

One of the oddities of the Amazon myth is that it's the right breast that's removed, but for a right-handed archer the left breast would get in the way more. Indeed, if you're drawing to the cheek, and with your bow arm held straight, the bowstring shouldn't really interact with the right breast at all. It could conceivably be an issue if you're shooting upwards, as you'd be drawing down into the breast, but even then it shouldn't present a major issue. There are plenty of female archers in the world who don't seem to have a problem with their boobs getting in the way of their shooting.

In any case, it seems there's not a lot of validity to the myth, if any. All ancient artistic depictions of Amazons show them with two breasts, which suggests even the Greeks didn't fully buy it. And as Frederick says, the risks of surgery in voluntary mastectomy would surely outweigh any fractional benefits gained to one's archery aim. It'd also likely be counterproductive: the damage to the musculature caused by such an amputation with ancient equipment (even assuming you survived) would have much more of a negative effect on one's archery ability than an intact breast would.

I think it belongs in the cultural chauvinism category,an ancient equivalent of the 1941 Americans' belief that Japanese pilots couldn't fly well because of their "squinty eyes",and Japanese,that Americans couldn't fly because they couldn't see around their big noses.

Yeah, that "cut off their breast" myth is tenacious in the popular mind but has been discounted by realist commentators and scholars.

I'd say the ancient concept of Amazons as horsewomen, peltasts, and skirmishers would be the way to go. I'd want them to be missile-fire specialists and emphasize speed and fire rather than shock tactics. They should be supreme skirmishers, guerillas, harassers, and "Parthian" shot tacticians.

You mention that they are by Copplestone – which manufacturer's range are they from? Thanks!

They are from Foundry's Casting Room Miniatures. I don't think they were sculpted by Copplestone. I have a lot of Copplestone miniatures & theses Amazons as well. The sculpting style of the Amazons is not the same as Mark Copplestone's other miniatures.

Oh, I confused Copplestone with Casting Room. Damn! it's because they have the same number of syllables with the stresses in the same place and start with a C. Thanks for pointing out my error; I will edit the blog.

Eureka made some too.

…and I will be painting them up soon. Stay tuned!

All the breast cutting story illustrates is that both prurience and dodgy folk etymology are constants of life.