Women Warriors - Sarmatians

[Tarbicus]

:lol: Thanks goodness....

[FAVENTIANVS]

The Order of the Hatchet was founded by Count Raymond Berenger of Barcelona in 1149. He wished to honor the women who fought in defense of the town of Tortosa against an attack by the Moors. One of the honors accorded to the members was precedence over men in public assemblies.

Didn't know that!!!! hock: hock: hock:

[Tarbicus]

Strabo (100BC), Plutarch (102BC) Dio Cassius (49 AD), (Tactus, 60AD) all record the existence of women warriors in northern and eastern cultures with great regularity. Roman accounts of battles record finding bodies of female warriors on the battlefield. Thirty captive Gothic warrior women were paraded in front of Emperor Aurelian in 283 AD.

And I didn't know that either.

[Robert Vermaat]

Thirty captive Gothic warrior women were paraded in front of Emperor Aurelian in 283 AD.

I'm not sure if they would have to be Gothic women, since the Alans were often allies of the Goths. But fighting women nontheless.

[hoplite14gr]

For what is worth here is my contribution with refernces to the recorded case of Greek women engaging in action.
http://www.romanarmy.com/rat/viewtopic.php?t=8816

Kind regards

[drsrob]

The Order of the Hatchet was founded by Count Raymond Berenger of Barcelona in 1149. He wished to honor the women who fought in defense of the town of Tortosa against an attack by the Moors. One of the honors accorded to the members was precedence over men in public assemblies.

Didn't know that!!!! hock: hock: hock:

Quoted from where?

[Tarbicus]

The Order of the Hatchet was founded by Count Raymond Berenger of Barcelona in 1149. He wished to honor the women who fought in defense of the town of Tortosa against an attack by the Moors. One of the honors accorded to the members was precedence over men in public assemblies.

Didn't know that!!!! hock: hock: hock:

Quoted from where?

Probably from Ashmole, The Institution, Laws, and Ceremony of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1672), Ch. 3, sect. 3

"The example is of the Noble Women of Tortosa in Aragon, and recorded by Josef Micheli Marquez, who plainly calls them Cavalleros or Knights, or may I not rather say Cavalleras, seeing I observe the words Equitissae and Militissae (formed from the Latin Equites and Milites) heretofore applied to Women, and sometimes used to express Madams or Ladies,though now these Titles are not known.

"Don Raymond, last Earl of Barcellona (who by intermarriage with Petronilla, only Daughter and Heir of King Ramiro the Monk, united that principality to the Kingdom of Aragon) having in the year 1149, gained the City of Tortosa from the Moors, they on the 31 of December following, laid a new Siege to that place, for the recovery of it out of the Earls hands. The Inhabitants being a length reduced to gread streights, desired relief of the Earl, but he, being not in a condition to give them any, they entertained some thoughts of making a surrender. Which the Women hearing of, to prevent the disaster threatning their City, themselves, and Children, put on mens Clothes, and by a resolute sally, forced the Moors to raise the Siege.

"The Earl, finding himself obliged, bythe gallentry of the action, thought fit to make his acknowlegements thereof, by granting them several Privileges and Immunities, and to perpetuate the memory of so signal an attempt, instituted an Order, somewhat like a Military Order, into which were admitted only those Brave Women, deriving the honor to their Descendants, and assigned them for a Dadge, a thing like a Fryars Capouche, sharp at the top, after the form of a Torch, and of a crimson colour, to be worn upon their Head-clothes. He also ordained, that at all publick meetings, the women should have precedence of the Men. That they should be exempted from all Taxes, adn that all the Apparel and Jewels, though of never so great value, left by their dead Husbands, should be their own.

"These Women (saith our Author) having thus aquired this Honor by their personal Valour, carried themselves after the Military Knights of those days." Jeanne Hachette, who fought to repel a Burgundian assault on the town of Beauvais in 1472. The King exempted her from taxes, and ordered that, in an annual procession to commemorate the event, women would have precedence over men. This story seems to be a carbon copy of the Order of the Hatchet story...

[Arthes]

I based her pale skin/dark hair on that of the Iranian/Persians...
regards
Arthes

[Ron Andrea]

The Romans were forever confusing national/tribal identity among their enemies.

Littleton and Malcor From Scythia to Camelot assert the following (pp 8-10):

The role of women in Scythian society, and the Northeast Iranian society as a whole ... differed markedly from that played by women in the Greco-Roman world .... The Greek legends about Amazons almost certainly derived from their observations of this culture. Scythian wives were expected to fight alongside their husbands when the occasion demanded, and Herodotus went so far as to assert that among their eastern cousins, the 'Sauromatae* ... [there is] a marriage law which forbids a girl to marry until she has killed an enemy in battle."

* Elsewhere (p. 5) Littleton and Malcor speculate that Herodotus' "Sauromatae" were "the immediate ancestors (or earliest known example) of the Sarmations."

Littleton and Malcor also state (p. 161) "The legends of the Amazons developed from observations by Greeks of the female Scythian warriors, e.g., in the writings of Suetonius and Hippoctrates."

[Ioannis]

By the way, we have a new thread on Greek warrior women: link from old RAT

[Ron Andrea]

But even the Greeks, our primary source for Amazon reports, understood the Amazons were not Greek.

Littleton and Malcor in From Scythis to Camelot (pp. 161-162) claim:

Fighting women were also found in Sythia and Alan-Sarmatian material. The legends of the Amazons were developed from observations by Greeks of the female Scythian warriors. Sarmatian women were said to be descended from the Amazons and the Scythians, and they fought in armor on horseback, as did the men. Archaeological evidence is surprisingly abundant for the presence of women warriors among the "Sauromatians."

Fighting women are also noted among the Alans who invaded Gaul in the fifth century. Paulinus Pellaeus indicates that Alan women fought alongside their men at Bazas.

Brzezinski and Mielczarek in The Sarmatians: 600 BC - AD 450 (pp. 3-4) state:

The early Sarmatians are now generally recognized as the reality behind the myth of the Amazons. According to Herodotus, women of Sauromatae hunted, shot bows and threw javelins from horseback, and went to war dressed in the same clothing as men. This is confirmed by archaeology: early Sarmatian female graves often contain bronze arrowheads, and occasionally swords, daggers and spearheads; while skeletons of girls aged 12 and 14 have bowed legs--evidence that, like boys, they were often in the saddle before they could walk.

They further state (p. 43):

During the 4th century BC the Sarmatians began to inflitrate across the [Don] river, and it is from this period that Greek historians began spinning tales of Amazons, based on the fact that Sarmatian women apparently took part in warfare. Sarmatian girls were supposedly forbidden to marry until they had killed an enemy (Hippocrates, Peri Aeron 17) -- or, perhaps more realistically, 'encountered an enemy in combat' (Pomponius Mela, 3.4).

[hoplite14gr]

Yes they did Ron.

The first Amazons though were porbably the women of the Bronze Age Kaska people that they reputed to be allies of the Trojans.
Kaska used to occupy the area now in the border of Turkey and Armenia and archeologiacl reserch is not easy there.

Another interesting thing is thst most of the "Skythic" people have descentands surviving in the Cauacasus mountains and the women there are reputed to be strongwilled and not "squamish" even then they give the impression of "obeying their husbands"

Kind regards

[Ron Andrea]

I agree. In fact, as we are reminded by the name of the great river system in South America, warrior women have been found in many cultures and epochs.

Like so much else in western culture, the Greek peoples gave the name which has become generic.

[Ron Andrea]

In fact, modern scholars have "reasoned backwards" from the remenants of Ossetian sagas in the Caucasus region to propose a potential link with Arthurian legends. While the linkage may be controversial, it is fascinating to see how connected we all might be.

[ambrosius]

I based her pale skin/dark hair on that of the Iranian/Persians...regards Arthes

What a babe! 8)

I think that's the bust modelled on one of the Sarmatian women's skulls
found at Pokrovka. Jeannine Davis-Kimball excavated here, with the
permission of the Russians. She found female weapons-burials where
the graves included the Sarmatian long-swords (~spathas) but with
the grip suitably reduced in length to fit the female hand. And the
bodies in these graves showed sword cut-marks on the skulls, proving
that the weapons weren't just for show. :wink:

Ambrosius (the Saxon-slayer) / Mike