“In almost every version of the legend, the Amazons are exclusively female. Women without husbands, sustaining their population by mating with captured males who were either enslaved or slaughtered afterward. They killed all their male offspring.”
“But that’s not the case?”
“It’s another example of how taking the legends at face value can get you into trouble. The word ‘Amazon’ definitely applies to the female warriors who ruled the city, but it would be more correct to say that they were a female-dominated society, or perhaps that they were considered the equal of men. Given the attitude of the ancient Greeks toward women, it’s not surprising that the poets of the time would have exaggerated equality into a sort of pervasive hatred of men.” She didn’t add that the confusion may also have been an intentional deception perpetrated by Diotrephes.
“How does that help us?”
“It means that in addition to throwing out our preconceived notions about the limitations of ancient travel, we also need to stop looking for some mythical kingdom without men. The city of the Amazons probably wasn’t much different from any other city of the day. Except, of course, for…” She trailed off as she considered the implications of the unspoken thought.
“Except for what?” Kenner prompted.
“Warriors and mariners,” Gallo murmured. “I think the Amazons might have been the Sea Peoples.”
Between the initial emergence of the Bronze era Mycenaean culture and the rise of Classical Greek civilization, was a period of time known as the Greek Dark Ages, a span of nearly three hundred years in which not only Greece but every civilization on the Mediterranean rim was terrorized by a marauding force, known to modern scholars as the Sea Peoples. The exact origin and identity of the Sea Peoples remained a controversial topic. Because of their apparent nomadic nature and lack of any permaculture, not to mention the wholesale destruction left in their wake, there was little hard evidence in the historical record to prove they existed at all.
“That’s why Queen Hippolyte’s belt was the symbol of her power,” Gallo went on. “The Amazons were able to dominate the world of their time because they possessed a map of the world.”
She scrolled to another page. “Hippolyte was prepared to give the belt to Herakles, to share that knowledge, but the rest of her people did not want to share. They turned against her and tried to kill him. Herakles defeated them and took the belt. He may have taken their other maps as well, or perhaps killed anyone with the ability to make new ones, effectively breaking the power of the Amazons. That’s got to be the truth behind the legend.”
Kenner nodded slowly, but then he shook his head as if trying to wake himself up. “But where is the Amazon city?”
“We’re looking for a city along a major river, at least 1,500 miles journey from Greece.” Gallo brought up the image of the belt again, studying the shorelines. “‘Endure a month while Eurus slept,’” she murmured. “Eurus was the god of the East wind. A month with no wind.”
“Is that unusual?”
“That depends on where you are in the world. Along the equator, there’s a band of low pressure where the wind hardly ever blows. Ancient mariners called it the ‘doldrums.’” Gallo felt like she was missing something.
Something important. Something obvious.
She laid her finger on the center of the map, approximating the location of the equator. To the right—east—lay the Congo River basin. To the left—west, across the Atlantic Ocean—was the…
“Oh, my God.”
“What?” Kenner asked, urgently. “What is it?”
Gallo took a deep breath. “In June of 1542, while exploring an uncharted river, a Spaniard named Francisco de Orellana, encountered a hostile force. Friar Gaspar de Carvajal, accompanying Orellana, wrote that the attackers shot so many arrows into the Spanish boats that they resembled porcupines. He lost his eye in the attack. Carvajal also reported that the attacking force was led by a group of about a dozen female warriors who fought as fiercely as the men, and it was only when most of the women were killed that the attack ended. The encounter made such an impression on the Spaniards that they named the river for the legendary warrior women of Greek mythology.”
Kenner’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “You’re not saying…”
“The land where Tethys, the mother of all rivers lives, where Herakles found the city of the Amazons,” She gave a helpless shrug. “It’s the Amazon.”
Kenner stared at her for almost a full minute before slowly letting his breath out in a sigh. “Amazons in the Amazon. I seem to recall reading a rather indecent paperback novel on the subject when I was young.”
“It fits,” Gallo insisted. “The story, the map. Everything.”