Friday’s Mythological Creature of the Day -- Amazon

I thought it would be appropriate if today I will describe Amazon, the real/mythological woman -worrier of Ancient Greece. The main reason for my choice is -- my novel 2.18 went live on Amazon Kindle on August 31st!!!

You can’t imagine how excited I am. And to share my joy and happiness I lowered the price to .99 for the next two weeks. This is my way to show my deep appreciation to all the people I’ve met through Twitter, GoodReads and blogs. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This is the beginning of the road, and I wouldn’t wish for a better company -- you know, who you are!

But back to the Amazons -- in my Mythological Encyclopedia, it’s mentioned that, allegedly, the Amazons were born through the union of Ares and his daughter, Harmony. They lived in Minor Asia, or near Azov Sea or Libya. They would consent to sex with men only for the procreation. If a girl was born -- she would be raised within the tribe. If a boy was born -- he would be sent to his father or killed.

Amazons were supposed to have excellent archery skills and were equally skilled with battle axes and light shields. Allegedly, the name of the tribe came from a ritual of cutting of or burning their left breast for a more convenient way of handling the weapons. Though, through the historical artifacts, we’ve learnt that both breasts were intact, but they would ride into the battle with one breast exposed to distract the male armies.

It’s also hard to say if they were of myth or actual tribes. Among others, there are extensive mentions by Pluto that Alexander the Great visited the warrior women clans...

Here are a couple of links for you to check out. Please let me know what you think. Myth or Truth?

http://www.mythindex.com/greek-mythology/A/Amazones.html

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/amazons.html

http://www.theoi.com/Heroine/AmazonPenthesileia.html

And why was Amazon.com called Amazon? Here is the answer from Wikipedia.org:

“Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com, Inc. in 1994 and the site went online in 1995. The company was originally named Cadabra, Inc., but the name was changed when it was discovered that people sometimes heard the name as "Cadaver". The name Amazon.com was chosen because the Amazon River is one of the largest rivers in the world and so the name suggests large size, and also in part because it starts with "A" and therefore would show up near the beginning of alphabetical lists.”

So it doesn’t deal with Amazons at all! Though judging by its warrior style, I would say that there might be some relationship!

Enjoy and have a great weekend!