Quotes by Adrienne Mayor - Page 1 | QuoteForever

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Just as a fossil is 'petrified time,' so is an ancient artifact or text.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ancient
Fossil
Petrified
Text
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Pictures of Amazons on vase paintings always show them as beautiful, active, spirited, courageous, and brave.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Active
Courageous
Spirited
Vase
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The name 'Amazon' was not originally Greek; linguists believe it derived from the ancient Iranian word for 'warrior.'
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ancient
Warrior
Derived
Originally
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Anyone who's watched 'The Hunger Games', or female archers, knows that that is an absolutely physiologically ridiculous idea.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Hunger
Hunger Games
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It is said the boundless steppes of Asia gave flight to tales of heroes and heroines because the conditions there are so harsh.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Asia
Boundless
Conditions
Flight
Harsh
Heroines
Tales
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I think that the Greeks were extremely ambivalent about the stories of Amazons: they found them both thrilling and rather daunting at the same time.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ambivalent
Thrilling
Daunting
Greeks
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We are used to thinking of Amazon myths in terms of violence against uppity women, but the ancient evidence also reveals a vision of gender equality.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ancient
Reveals
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Before I began concentrating on writing, in my free time I was an artist, making and selling etchings illustrating stories based on my readings in classical literature.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Concentrating
Free Time
Illustrating
Selling
Classical
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Evidence pointing to eagle hunting's antiquity comes from Scythian and other burial mounds of nomads who roamed the steppes 3,000 years ago and whose artifacts abound in eagle imagery.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Antiquity
Burial
Evidence
Hunting
Imagery
Pointing
Years Ago
Abound
Eagle
Whose
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The 'Iliad' covered only two months of the great ten-year war with Troy. At least six other epic poems preceded or continued the events in the 'Iliad', but they survive only as fragments.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Covered
Epic
Fragments
Iliad
Survive
Troy
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The Ephesians took great pride in their temple, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Amazons had worshipped here, and the fabulously rich King Croesus built the original temple.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ancient
Pride
Rich
Seven
Original
Great Pride
Wonders
Temple
Worshipped
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In the seventeenth century, a French missionary in Canada reported a 'strange legend' circulating among the Hurons. They told of a monster with a 'horn' that could pierce anything, even rock.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Canada
Missionary
Pierce
Legend
Horn
Monster
Reported
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Unlike settled, patriarchal societies such as classical Greece and Rome, where women stayed home to weave and mind children, the lives of nomadic steppe tribes centered on horses and archery.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Archery
Greece
Nomadic
Rome
Tribes
Centered
Classical
Unlike
Horses
Societies
Patriarchal
Settled
Stayed
Weave
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The tasks of paleontologists and classical historians and archaeologists are remarkably similar - to excavate, decipher and bring to life the tantalizing remnants of a time we will never see.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Decipher
Life Time Will
Classical
Historians
Remarkably
Similar
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I just had a hunch that there might be kernels of truth or reality - scientific or historical reality - in stories about nature that are perpetuated in oral myths. That's how I got interested in it.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Hunch
Oral
Scientific
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It's sort of fair to say that Amazons, both as reality and as a dream of equality, have always been with us; it's just that sometimes that fiery Amazon spirit is hidden from view or even suppressed.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Fiery
Hidden
Suppressed
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Archaeologists have been digging up thousands of graves of people called Scythians by the Greeks. They turn out to be people whose women fought, hunted, rode horses, used bows and arrows, just like the men.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Arrows
Bows
Digging
Graves
Hunted
Men Women People
Women Men People
Fought
Greeks
Horses
Rode
Thousands
Whose
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The sheer number of legendary narratives and historically verifiable incidents invites us to revise assumptions about the origins of biological and chemical warfare and its moral and technological constraints.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Constraints
Incidents
Invites
Legendary
Sheer
Warfare
Assumptions
Biological
Chemical
Historically
Narratives
Origins
Revise
Verifiable
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I find writing a book a slow, intricate process, a kind of obstacle course punctuated with great rewards. But research is always thrilling, and I tend to incorporate newfound material up to the very last minute.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Book
Intricate
Process
Research
Rewards
Thrilling
Course
Incorporate
Material
Minute
Obstacle
Slow
Tend
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Male buerkitshi are certainly more common than females today, although eagle hunting has always been open to interested girls. Archaeology suggests that eagle huntresses were probably more common in ancient times.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ancient
Ancient Times
Archaeology
Common
Hunting
Male
Although
Interested
Open
Certainly
Eagle
Females
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The Romans had chosen Pergamon to be the capital of their new province. But by 88 B.C., most of western Asia was allied with King Mithradates, who had taken over the royal palace in Pergamon for his own headquarters.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Asia
Chosen
Headquarters
Royal
Western
Allied
Capital
Palace
Province
Romans
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Indeed, many ancient Greek writers do treat Amazons as a tribe of men and women. They credit the tribe with innovations such as ironworking and domestication of horses. Some early vase paintings show men fighting alongside Amazons.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ancient
Credit
Men And Women
Men Women Fighting
Alongside
Women Men Fighting
Horses
Indeed
Innovations
Tribe
Vase
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In the non-Greek stories, Persia, Egypt, even China, Central Asia, in oral traditions and written literature, anyone who fights Amazons admires their courage and beauty, and they want to be allies of the Amazon; they don't wanna kill them.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Allies
Asia
Egypt
Persia
Admires
Wanna
Central
Oral
Traditions
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If Queen Amezan and Queen Penthesilea could somehow meet in real life, they would recognize each other as sister Amazons. Two tales, two storytellers, two sites far apart in time and place, and yet one common tradition of women who made love and war.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Real Life
Tales
Tradition
Life Love War
Queen
Sites
Storytellers
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Many scholars are not used to perceiving natural knowledge expressed in mythological language. If the study of fossils was not mentioned by Aristotle or Thucydides, and it wasn't, then it just didn't exist for many classicists and ancient historians.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ancient
Fossils
Expressed
Historians
Mentioned
Mythological
Perceiving
Scholars
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The nomads' egalitarian lifestyle astonished the Greeks, who kept their own women indoors weaving and minding children. The exotic Scythian lifestyle fueled the Greek imagination and led to an outpouring of myths about fierce Amazons, 'the equals of men.'
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Exotic
Lifestyle
Weaving
Astonished
Egalitarian
Equals
Fueled
Women Men Imagination
Greeks
Indoors
Minding
Outpouring
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In April 2001, I visited Big Bone Lick State Park in Kentucky. The heaps of mastodon and other large skeletons that used to loom out of the brackish backwaters along the Ohio River here are long gone, though the occasional big bone sometimes comes to light.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
April
Occasional
Ohio
Skeletons
Bone
Lick
Long Gone
Park
River
Visited
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Layer upon layer, Italy's storied past unfolds in Robert Kaster's captivating journey along the venerable Queen of Roads. I cannot imagine a more perfect guide to such a rich trove of ancient and modern memories. Illuminating, erudite, entertaining, and evocative.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Journey
Queens
Memories
Past
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I've always been interested in oral traditions and mythological stories and legends from antiquity that have to do with nature, attempts to explain mysterious or puzzling, or very striking phenomena from nature. Things that people observed or heard about in nature.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Antiquity
Legends
Mysterious
Puzzling
Attempts
Observed
Phenomena
Explain
Nature People Always
Oral
Striking
Traditions
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Historical records show that Abenakis and other Natives encountered European explorers and traders in Canada looking for sources of ivory to compete with the Russian trade in Siberian fossil mammoth ivory - these traders routinely asked about ivory 'horns' and teeth.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Canada
Explorers
Horns
Ivory
Teeth
Compete
Encountered
Fossil
Mammoth
Natives
Sources
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I think the key to the whole appeal of Amazons is the egalitarian society. There was once a time and place where equality was taken for granted - it was logical and necessary - and I think most people can get the message that if it happened once, it could happen again.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Granted
Logical
Taken For Granted
Appeal
Egalitarian
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The real Amazons were long believed to be purely imaginary. They were the mythical warrior women who were the archenemies of the ancient Greeks. Every Greek hero or champion, from Hercules to Theseus and Achilles, had to prove his mettle by fighting a powerful warrior queen.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Achilles
Ancient
Champion
Fighting
Imaginary
Prove
Warrior
Ancient Greeks
Believed
Greeks
Hercules
Mythical
Purely
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The Amazons were notorious for their freedom: their sexual freedom, their freedom to hunt, to be outdoors, to go to war; and the Greeks, both men and women alike, were fascinated by these stories. Maybe it was a safe way to explore the idea of women who could be equals of men.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Fascinated
Men And Women
Notorious
Alike
Both Men And Women
Equals
Explore
Greeks
Sexual
Hunt
Outdoors
Safe Way
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As early as 1681-82, a group of Abenakis had accompanied the French explorer La Salle on his historic voyage down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. By 1700, many Abenaki and Iroquois Indians spoke French and had some European education, and some were literate in French and Latin.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Historic
Iroquois
Mexico
Mississippi
Accompanied
Gulf
Indians
La
Literate
Voyage
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I have discovered that if you take all the places of Greek myths, those specific locales turn out to be abundant fossil sites, but there is also a lot of natural knowledge embedded in those myths, showing that Greek perceptions about fossils were pretty amazing for prescientific people.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Embedded
Abundant
Discovered
Fossil
Perceptions
Showing
Sites
Specific
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From about 700 B.C. to A.D. 500, the vast territory of Scythia, stretching from the Black Sea to China, was home to diverse but culturally related nomads. Known as Scythians to Greeks, Saka to the Persians, and Xiongnu to the Chinese, the steppe tribes were masters of horses and archery.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Archery
China
Diverse
Masters
Related
Sea
Stretching
Territory
Tribes
Vast
Greeks
Horses
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That whole heroic notion of the women warriors known as Amazons is extremely appealing. It was appealing in antiquity, and, throughout the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, they're always portrayed as heroic, courageous, and the equals of men, and that's just extremely attractive and has been since antiquity.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Antiquity
Attractive
Courageous
Heroic
Middle Ages
Notion
Renaissance
Men Women Always
Ages
Appealing
Equals
Women Men Always
Portrayed
Warriors
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The strong bond of sisterhood was a famous trait in classical art and literature about Amazons. But it was modern people who interpreted that as a sexual preference for women. That started in the 20th century. The Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva declared that Amazons were symbolic of lesbianism in antiquity.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Famous
Antiquity
Century
Literature
Poet
Preference
Sisterhood
Symbolic
Bond
Classical
Trait
Sexual
Interpreted
Russian
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Pergamon, a prosperous city in western Anatolia, was fabled to have been founded by Hercules' son. Like many Hellenistic cities populated by Greeks who intermarried with indigenous people, Pergamon after Alexander the Great's death (323 B.C.) had evolved a hybrid of democracy and Persian-influenced monarchy.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Cities
Indigenous
Indigenous People
Monarchy
Prosperous
Western
Alexander
Greeks
Hercules
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I write in two very different places: my desk in Palo Alto, California, is piled high with myriad jumbled books and papers whose stratigraphy is a challenge. Summers in Bozeman, Montana, I write in a spare space, surrounded by interesting rocks and fossils instead of books, on an old oak table with nothing but my laptop.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
California
Fossils
Montana
Papers
Rocks
Alto
Desk
Different Places
Laptop
Myriad
Oak
Piled
Spare
Summers
Surrounded
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The Greeks first identified the Amazons ethnographically, as a nation of men and women distinguished by something outstanding in their gender relations. Later, any ambivalence or anxiety that knowledge of this alternative gender-neutral culture evoked among Greeks was played out in their mythic narratives about martial women.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ambivalence
Distinguished
Men And Women
Outstanding
Alternative
Knowledge Men Women
Knowledge Women Men
Greeks
Identified
Martial
Mythic
Narratives
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The cultural center of Asia Minor, Pergamon boasted a vast library of 200,000 scrolls, a spectacular 10,000-seat theater, and a monumental Great Altar decorated with sculptures of the Olympian gods defeating the Giants. People came from all around the Mediterranean seeking cures at the famous Temple of Asclepius, god of medicine.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Famous
Asia
Cures
Giants
Medicine
Olympian
Seeking
Spectacular
Theater
God Great People
Altar
Came
Center
Cultural
Decorated
Vast
Minor
Monumental
Sculptures
Temple
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An ancient Scythian nomad skeleton buried with an eagle was reportedly excavated near Aktobe Gorge, Kazakhstan. Ancient petroglyphs in the Altai region depict eagle hunters, and inscribed Chinese stone reliefs show eagles perched on the arms of hunters in tunics, trousers, and boots, identified as northern nomads (1st to 2nd century A.D.).
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Ancient
Arms
Boots
Buried
Chinese
Hunters
Trousers
Depict
Eagle
Identified
Near
Northern
Perched
Region
Skeleton
Stone
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We know their names: Hippolyta, Antiope, Thessalia. But they were long thought to be just travelers' tales or products of the Greek storytelling imagination. A lot of scholars still argue that. But archaeology has now proven without a doubt that there really were women fitting the description that the Greeks gave us of Amazons and warrior women.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
Imagination
Archaeology
Description
Doubt
Fitting
Products
Proven
Tales
Warrior
Greeks
Scholars
Travelers
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Although it is tempting to imagine an ancient era innocent of biochemical weaponry, in fact this Pandora's box of horrors was opened thousands of years ago. The history of making war with biological weapons begins in mythology, in ancient oral traditions that preserved records of actual events and ideas of the era before the invention of written histories.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
War
Ideas
Years
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war with poison and chemicals was not so rare in the ancient world ... An astounding panoply of toxic substances, venomous creatures, poison plants, animals and insects, deleterious environments, virulent pathogens, infectious agents, noxious gases, and combustible chemicals were marshalled to defeat foes - and panoply is an apt term here, because it is the ancient Greek word for 'all weapons.
Adrienne Mayor / Historian
History
War
Animal
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