|
|
Warrior Women: An Archeologist's Search for History's Hidden
Heroines, by Jeannine Davis-Kimball with Mona Behan. Warner Books,
2002, 268 pages.
Wishful Digging by Michael Drew
Having dabbled in archeology in college, I remember being
curious about news stories of ancient "Amazon" warriors discovered out on the
Russian steppes back in the 1990s. The San Francisco Chronicle, New Scientist
Magazine, and others reported intriguing finds of women buried with weapons,
leading experts to speculate about a possible race of female combatants, perhaps
even the fierce Amazons of Greek myth. The History Channel and Learning
Channel also got into the act with TV specials entitled "Russian Amazons" and the
like.
| | Michael
Drew is a writer living in Berkeley, Calif. |
|
Archeologist Jeannine Davis-Kimball is the person perhaps most responsible for
this latter-day "legend of the Amazons," and "Warrior Women" is her belated
book-length treatment of the subject. Davis-Kimball is a Berkeley Ph.D. and
founder of the "American-Eurasian Research Insti-tute" and "Center for the Study
of Eurasian Nomads" located in Oakland, Calif.
I must confess to some bias up front, as the idea of real-life Amazons seemed
far-fetched when I first read the media accounts on the subject. Either the men
must have stayed home to cook and rear children while the women went out and
fought (presumably against men), or an all-women gang must have gone out
kidnapping little girls to raise as warriors, or something. Yet sure enough, the
outer jacket of Warrior Women touted "The origins of the Amazons, and a legacy of
formidable, fighting women that is not myth but truth." Given the suggestive
flavor of reports from other mainstream sources, I decided to plunk down my money
and find out.
Drawing on her fieldwork in former Soviet central Asia, Davis-Kimball's book
uses a personal travelogue style to make the case that the "Sauromatians and
Sarmatians, no-madic tribes of fierce warriors who ruled vast portions of the
steppes more than two millennia ago" (p. xi), were not the stereotypical
male-dominated warrior society we normally imagine. Not only were these steppe
peoples more egalitarian than patriarchal in her view, they also produced
powerful female warriors who achieved very high status and influence within the
nomadic society.
In an evident attempt to weave together past and present, Davis-Kimball
records impressions of contemporary Mongolian culture in her travels, then takes
seemingly disconnected jaunts to Ireland and Norway in a sort of worldwide
women's archeology tour that wanders far from her primary work.
Nevertheless, after some personal anecdotes and accounts of her dealings with
the Russian authorities in the field, Davis-Kimball finally brings us out to her
main dig at Pokravka in Kazakstan, (a few hundred miles due east of Volgograd,
formerly Stalingrad for any World War II buffs out there). I expected her to
quickly begin knocking down the model of the stereotypical male-dominated warrior
society, as promised in the introductory hype. Instead, she acknowledges early on
that the largest, grandest tombs, or "kurgans," housed great male chieftains
(22), as the stereotypes might suggest.
Next she shares a quantitative analysis of the burial remains of adult
skeletons at Pokravka to determine their roles and social status. Maybe this
would prove to be the mother lode of some elusive Amazon nation. But incredibly,
"a full 94 percent of the men were entombed with the bronze and iron arrowheads,
swords and daggers that indicated warrior status" (46). By contrast, for women
"by far the largest group — some 75 percent — belonged to the
hearth-woman category, categorized by clay spindles, bronze spiral earrings . . .
a panoply of colored beads and stone and glass" (47).
But where are the "warrior women"? A smaller group of women at Pokravka was
indeed found buried with an assortment of arrowheads and daggers as reported in
the press. Several were found with their legs bent, as if to symbolize a life on
horseback. The book never says exactly how big this group was, but some of the
earlier articles on the same dig put the total at
seven. |
| Could serious reporters
and editors be gullible enough to accept the idea of a 13-year-old girl squaring
off against grown men in ancient hand-to-hand combat, of which the history of the
time has no record? |
|
How does Davis-Kimball wind up interpreting this genuinely interesting find,
the one that caused all the hubbub? One clue might come from history. Though the
Sarmatians had no writing, some of their neighbors had quite a lot. The Greeks
and Romans wrote detailed descriptions of their encounters with barbarians (the
usual characterization of any non-Greeks or Romans), especially military
encounters. For example, we know that in A.D. 175, the Roman army hired 5,000
Sarmatian mercenaries and transported them to Britain to guard Hadrian's Wall,
where they eventually retired (32). No mention is made of any warrior women,
despite the Romans' known fascination with unusual barbarian customs.
Davis-Kimball concedes the absence of corroborative sources on her pet theme
and quietly drops the bombshell that the lack of "contemporaneous authors
reporting female warriors participating in raids or full-scale invasions [not to
mention the relatively small numbers she fails to emphasize] leads me to believe
that women were mainly used in defensive situations . . . and also defended their
herds from predators, including foreign tribesmen" when the men were away (65),
which was probably much of the time for nomadic raiders. This seems analogous to
American pioneer women competently hefting a rifle when they were alone on the
homestead.
So that's it? What happened to the "legions of women warriors" who "helped
conquer new worlds" as celebrated throughout the book? And why did an
organization like Reuters use this same body of evidence to trumpet "Evidence of
Amazons found in Russian steppes," in an article that quoted Davis-Kimball saying
that the burial mounds "fit the Greek legend neatly?" The essential facts, even
as Davis-Kimball presents them, seem to deflate her case, but you wouldn't know
it from either the way others reported the story, or from her own triumphant tone
carried on in spite of the weakness of her case.
At one point, Davis-Kimball unearths the skeleton of a girl of about 13, with
amulets and weapons revealing her "potent warrior prowess" (58). "A clutch of
seashells marked her dual role as a priestess" (60). She speaks of other girls in
their teens "wielding swords well over three feet long that increased the reach
and power of the combatant," (65) even asserting that "the style of warfare
practiced by ancient steppe nomads was particularly well-suited to women" (62).
Could serious reporters and editors be gullible enough to accept the idea of a
13-year-old girl squaring off against grown men in ancient hand-to-hand combat,
of which the history of the time has no record? Or were they just cynically
trying to sell papers while Time-Warner Books sold copies of "Warrior Women"? The
answer would appear to be a mixture of capitalist sensationalism, socialist
activism, and perhaps a dose of modern-day critical thinking (or lack
thereof).
In support of the theory of sensationalism for profit, the "fierce Amazon
tribe" hook undoubtedly grabs more headlines than the tale of "women who probably
guarded the camp" while the men were away. But the same can be said for any
subject, leaving this explanation wanting by itself. Why aren't there wild new
accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg or other historical events out there to draw
in additional readers? That's where the second, or "socialist," factor probably
kicks in.
It's common to see scathing media attacks on creationism, Holocaust denial or
any perceived right-wing kookiness. But when something equally wacky appears on
the Left, such as the world according to Afrocentrism, one rarely hears a
discouraging word, and may hear downright praise at times. (I must say I was
impressed when Newsweek, in the midst of a controversy over whether Cleopatra was
black, got up the courage to say she was "probably" Greek — I guess the way
Julius Caesar was probably Roman.)
Even more so, stories with a feminist twist tend to pass unscathed, or even
amplified, through the usual censors of critical thought. For example, the
Discovery Channel recently aired a show on powerful "Women Pharaohs," despite the
fact that some of the Egyptian women called pharaohs in the promotional buildup
— including Nefertiti and Nefertari — weren't actually pharaohs.
Whether the producers of this show would even be aware of this inaccuracy is
unknown given the ongoing erosion in the historical knowledge of the typical
college graduate.
Either way, when a gender-bending story such as "real life Amazons" happens to
coincide with the latest pop culture fantasy — the powerful legion of women
warriors on TV — the temptation to stretch the truth must be irresistible.
The particular way they do the stretching is also instructive.A tactic I've noticed in feminist writings is the blatant omission of key
facts or context — usually surrounding the existence of men — to create
an exaggerated impression of woman-power. Goddess civilization advocates will
often report factually on goddesses such as Isis and Astarte, while conveniently
failing to mention their male counterparts in the coed ancient pantheons.
| It's common to see
scathing media attacks on creationism, Holocaust denial or any perceived
right-wing kookiness. But when something equally wacky appears on the Left, such
as the world according to Afrocentrism, one rarely hears a discouraging word.
|
|
Likewise, despite the preponderance of male warriors, male chiefs, and
domestic women unearthed in Davis-Kimball's Sarmatian population, the news
articles and reviews I read, including Davis-Kimball's short abstract published
in Archeology magazine, mention only the women warriors, and nobody else.
Naturally the reader takes from this an impression of a race of Amazons, without
the article having actually lied about it.
Despite the barrage of supportive stories, later in her own book Davis-Kimball
admits there is no evidence anywhere to support the original Amazon myth, or
anything equivalent to it. But in the cleverly titled chapter "Advent of the
Amazons," she complains of how "the accounts are maddeningly vague and
contradictory when it comes to pinpointing their homeland" (120). Elsewhere she
is "haunted by the knowledge that these representations [on Greek pottery] did
not do justice to the Amazons' capabilities" (114). In short, she speaks in some
places as if they existed, while conceding elsewhere they really didn't,
apparently keeping the dream in play for her audience of Xena or Buffy fans while
at the same time taking care not to get herself into trouble.
But beyond the question of an Amazon tribe, Davis-Kimball is still stuck
having to explain the existence of those male Sarmatian chieftains buried in the
large "czar kurgans" mentioned earlier in the book. How does this jibe with her
larger hypothesis of the egalitarian, non-patriarchal ancient society? Here she
reaches for a standard tool of feminist researchers, the "proactive"
interpretation of archeological evidence.
"As I interpreted our finds from Pokrovka, it became evident that the
Sauro-Sarmatian women enjoyed a measure of power and prominence far beyond what
previous researchers had ever imagined" (13). The storyline goes something like
this:
A number of female skeletons were found with bronze mirrors, seashells and
precious jewels. Based on Davis-Kimball's interpretation of the "magical
significance" of these artifacts, these women were obviously "priestesses." In
the case mentioned earlier, a seashell necklace indicated priestess status; in
another it was mirrors that indicated priestess status (74); in yet another,
tattoos (144).
Because there were so many "priestesses," women must have "dominated" ancient
nomadic religion. (In one random group of mummies excavated by another
archeologist in Tillya Tepe in Afghanistan, Davis-Kimball identifies "two
priestesses, three warrior-priestesses and a male" (183).
It follows that if women dominated the religion, "Given their incredible
wealth of gold and icons emblazoned with supernatural power, it takes little
imagination to realize that these warrior priestesses had attained authority on
par with that of [the male] chieftains" (237).
Actually it takes an incredible imagination. But she's not finished yet; there
is still that 75 percent of all females categorized earlier as "hearth women."
Why similar keepers of the hearth in other cultures never achieved such power and
prominence is left unanswered. Instead, Davis-Kimball emphasizes the fact that
"[n]ot only were women generally buried with a wider variety of rich artifacts,
they also occupied more statuses than the men" (47). But as she is surely aware,
this was a common practice in other patriarchal cultures. Old Anglo-Saxon graves
consistently reveal more and better goodies among the women. Davis-Kimball
herself stresses the same point about Viking women's graves (216) without seeing
how it undermines her argument — the Vikings were a typical male-dominated
warrior society.
The funny thing is, if you tally up all "these women of power — the
priestesses, warriors and high ranking hearth women" (138), the result is a
preposterous social structure in which virtually all women seem to have some kind
of elite status. Maybe that's the wisdom we're ultimately supposed to take out of
this book.
That such shoddy scholarship should grace feminist bookshelves is not so
surprising. That it may also be reported elsewhere as "news," seemingly without
any rigorous appraisal in the process, is a more sobering testament to our modern
age of "infotainment."
|
| | |
|
