Amazons

Surrounded with legends of the Amazons, and Jason and the Argonauts, Giresun Island in the eastern Black Sea has become a tourist attraction.

Director Pantelis Dentakis has taken up the challenge of working with one of the masterpieces of romantic theater, Heinrich von Kleist's "Penthesilea," inspired by the mutual passion between the mythical Amazon queen and Achilles at Troy, to address the question: Can one fall in love with one's enemy?

Director Pantelis Dentakis has taken up the challenge of working with one of the masterpieces of romantic theater, Heinrich von Kleist's "Penthesilea," inspired by the mutual passion between the mythical Amazon queen and Achilles at Troy, to address the question: Can one fall in love with one's enemy?

The Giresun Island, the only one in the eastern Black Sea region that is also inhabited, has many mythological stories and historical ruins. Among the many mythologies is a legend that Amazonian women lived on the island and Hercules came to the island to find golden fur.
 

The Giresun Island, the only one in the eastern Black Sea region that is also inhabited, has many mythological stories and historical ruins. Among the many mythologies is a legend that Amazonian women lived on the island and Hercules came to the island to find golden fur.
 

These legendary horsewomen-archers are oftenly described as fearsome, war-loving lesbians, who killed baby boys and cut off their own breasts to better fire a bow and arrow.

But is that true? Stanford University historian Adrienne Mayor reveals in her book: “The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women Across the Ancient World.” the truth behind the myth.

An accidental archeological discovery on a small cylindrical vase dated between 480-450 BC in the University of Mississippi’s David M. Robinson Memorial Collection revealed a warrior woman on horseback who had previously gone unnoticed.

The remains of a 2,500-year-old female body unearthed at the Altai Mountains suggest that she may have been a member of the elite all-female virgin Amazon warriors revered by the ancient Greeks. She lay entombed beside a much older man, accompanied by shields, battle axes, bows and arrowheads.