This is a man's world..... but it wouldn't be nothing without a woman or a girl

I have a question for discussion, specifically concerning the Sarmatians and Saka. Excavations conducted on Kurgans in Russia and the Ukraine have found multiple female burials which contain weapons, armour and quivers. These burials belong to both the Sarmatian and Scythian cultures and further literary evidence (the Amazon myth concerning the Sarmatian origin) points to the evidence of female warriors in nomadic steppe culture.

My question is: Will the nomadic steppe factions employ female warriors?

I'm not one of these factions historians, so I could be wrong. But I believe they agreed not to make a female unit but potentially have a rare female within a unit.

The problem is that there is no way to tell the engine to combine a female head with a female torso... although with the steppe-dwellers clothes you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

ugh I'm just imagining one of those Vanilla female scythians a bold head with a enormous moustache :DDDD

I doubt you could tell their gender from their figure when a horsewoman is kitted out for battle. So you could simple put some female faces in there.

And since they are most likely not wearing makeup, you probably can't really tell a woman from a beardless man, on a horse, wrapped up in furs and armour anyway.

Well, generally, women have different facial features from men. Unless they're horribly scarred from battle, in which case they would be nomad TARPS.

But there are reportedly several more modern occurrences of women passing themselves of as men in the army. Perhaps it is a case of not seeing the visual clues you do not expect to see in a young army officer because you aren't looking for them in the first place.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

The problem is that there is no way to tell the engine to combine a female head with a female torso... although with the steppe-dwellers clothes you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

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Just make the standard bearer on the noble HA a chick.:inquisitive:

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Originally Posted by Ludens

The problem is that there is no way to tell the engine to combine a female head with a female torso... although with the steppe-dwellers clothes you probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

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That is true, excavations of very well preserved bodies like the Sarmatians of Pazyryk in Siberia show that men and women were buried with (and hence wore) the same clothes. As people have mentioned you would only need to alter the faces. The only thing that concerns me is the voice, no matter how fearsome the Sarmatian women folk were I dare say that if you struck one with an arrow she would be unlikely to utter a mannish growl of pain (with the greatest respect to female EB players... if you even exist).

I dont know, but if the people in ancient times had woman with big breast, i guess you would see that even under an armour. Not to mention the proportions of the body and the face.:book:

Armour is generally quite rigid in structure, and breasts are just fat. There would be no discernable difference if they wore armour. Or thick steppe outfits.

If you're only way of telling a girl apart is boobs, well. I can't blame you but there are other anatomical cues that your eyes catch if you see them.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

If you're only way of telling a girl apart is boobs, well. I can't blame you but there are other anatomical cues that your eyes catch if you see them.

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Something about the length of one finger compared to the other or something.

The difference is generally in the proportions of the skull. The chin, and brows being the most visible indicators. But when you are wearing a big hat and furs and armour the features are definitely distorted. Besides, most active, athletic women do not get large breasted except during periods of pregnancy and recent birth.

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Originally Posted by Brennus

That is true, excavations of very well preserved bodies like the Sarmatians of Pazyryk in Siberia show that men and women were buried with (and hence wore) the same clothes. As people have mentioned you would only need to alter the faces. The only thing that concerns me is the voice, no matter how fearsome the Sarmatian women folk were I dare say that if you struck one with an arrow she would be unlikely to utter a mannish growl of pain (with the greatest respect to female EB players... if you even exist).

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Firstly, the peoples of the Pazyryk culture were not Sarmatians. The Sarmatians did not extend farther than the Aral Sea. Instead, they seem to have been well within the Saka cultural orbit, if not actually Saka. Secondly, numerous burials and iconographic representations show that Pazyryk women actually did wear separate clothing from the men (notable, long dresses), with the exception of one burial excavated in the early 90's (Ak-Alakha 2) which included an older man and a young woman, both likely nobles, who were wearing almost exactly the same costume. However, if they were going into combat, they would likely have worn the same if not similar clothing to men.

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Originally Posted by Maeran

But there are reportedly several more modern occurrences of women passing themselves of as men in the army. Perhaps it is a case of not seeing the visual clues you do not expect to see in a young army officer because you aren't looking for them in the first place.

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We have Diodorus' story (32.10) of how in 145 BC, a certain Diophantos, a Macedonian who was living in Syria with his Arab wife, had a daughter who, after becoming old enough to marry and doing so, grew a full set of genitalia, changed her name to a man's, wore men's clothing, and was then conscripted into the cavalry of Alexander Balas!

...grew a full set of genitalia!?!?!?

just one set??

What? You have more than one set?

Seriously though: obviously as far as their is merit to the story of Diodoros it is exceedingly unlikely for a girl to grow a set of men's genitalia based on the fact that in humans the female is the default, the womb is located in the female (consequentially a baby is exposed to female hormones which may in fact inhibit/prevent male genitalia in/from developing), and the male is not. It is far more likely the man/woman was a hermaphrodite by birth -- and when he/she was dressed you would be unable to tell him/her from a woman at first.

I can tell you, however, that it is easy to discern our male and female fighters in Viking fighting kit.

Though of course living in the modern world they mey have altered their gear slightly to emphasise femininity, I dunno, much and many looks similar in both genders.

We have no steppe peoples.


BTW, in a woman's grave on Gotland (I think it was), two swords was found. Does that mean she fought? Maybe, maybe it was merely regalia of a station she held. Does it mean a large proportion of Viking fighters were women? Probably not...

See; archeological clues are tricky to interpret and make evidence...

It's pretty clear that Diodorus just heard the story and was relaying it as he heard it. Thinking about it, she was probably a hermaphrodite her whole life, as Tellos says, and when she got married, her secret was revealed. So, of course, the most logical explanation is that she grew a pair overnight...

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Originally Posted by Macilrille

BTW, in a woman's grave on Gotland (I think it was), two swords was found. Does that mean she fought? Maybe, maybe it was merely regalia of a station she held. Does it mean a large proportion of Viking fighters were women? Probably not...

See; archeological clues are tricky to interpret and make evidence...

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In the case of steppe archaeology, the evidence is much easier to interpret since weaponry is very widespread, some literary sources attest to women fighting among steppe tribes (this is more historical information, mind you, not just amazon myths...), and several female skeletons have been found buried with arms which also exhibit signs of trauma suffered in combat.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

Just make the standard bearer on the noble HA a chick.:inquisitive:

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Originally Posted by seienchin

I dont know, but if the people in ancient times had woman with big breast, i guess you would see that even under an armour. Not to mention the proportions of the body and the face.:book:

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The one thing they definitely won't be is a "chick". It's hard to realize from a modern perspective, but the Classical world was always on the brink of famine, and disease and disfigurement were rampant. Women from that period would not look like models, nor would most of their men be particularly handsome. So woman fighters were not slim-waisted figures with prominent breasts, but sturdily-built and well-muscled females whose secondary characteristics are hard to spot under their clothes. Frankly, I suspect that even when EB does add female horse archers most people will not notice anything, other than that some of their Sarmatians do not have moustaches.

not to get into a debate , but IMO (from information gathered) people would of been much healthier in general, except possibly those living in large towns or cities. (unless you were wealthy).

i'll leave it at that .. like i was saying , do not want to get this into a debate and side track the topic.

Meinpanzer, give me your bibliography, I have an essay due in a month on detecting social makeup in Scythians and Sarmatians and you seem to know your stuff. I will bribe you with a baloon if neccessary.:beam:

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Originally Posted by Ludens

The one thing they definitely won't be is a "chick". It's hard to realize from a modern perspective, but the Classical world was always on the brink of famine, and disease and disfigurement were rampant. Women from that period would not look like models, nor would most of their men be particularly handsome. So woman fighters were not slim-waisted figures with prominent breasts, but sturdily-built and well-muscled females whose secondary characteristics are hard to spot under their clothes. Frankly, I suspect that even when EB does add female horse archers most people will not notice anything, other than that some of their Sarmatians do not have moustaches.

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1) Chick = Female.
2) A noble and soldier would have access to a better diet.
3) Physical build still doesn't completely change proportions especially those of the face especially if no one is trying to hide their gender.

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So woman fighters were not slim-waisted figures with prominent breasts, but sturdily-built and well-muscled females whose secondary characteristics are hard to spot under their clothes.

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2) A noble and soldier would have access to a better diet.

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Both are correct.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

2) A noble and soldier would have access to a better diet.

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i wouldn't say a better diet ... maybe a more decadent diet.(and excess)

@Azaroth, response was to this:

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It's hard to realize from a modern perspective, but the Classical world was always on the brink of famine, and disease and disfigurement were rampant

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I also wouldn't say that the 'brink of famine' thing wasn't as much of an issue for the higher classes especially in a nomadic context where you rely on mobile herds rather than purely sitting in one spot and taking whatever comes.

@goat, better = regular filling portions, protein, and other nutrients that most people would have been deficient in that would have prevented certain disorders and diseases as in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutriti...nt_consumption

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Originally Posted by Brennus

Meinpanzer, give me your bibliography, I have an essay due in a month on detecting social makeup in Scythians and Sarmatians and you seem to know your stuff. I will bribe you with a baloon if neccessary.:beam:

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What are you writing on specifically, what time period are you concerned with (the entire sweep from the 8th c. BC to the first centuries AD, or just one period?), what languages are you able to read, and what sources have you already consulted?

I've heard that those woman warriors of Steppe Nomads cut their breasts, so they won't interfere with firing arrows.... Because of that, we just simply couldn't differentiate them with their male counterparts except for their face....

So, who feed their babies? Slave womans?

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

@goat, better = regular filling portions, protein, and other nutrients that most people would have been deficient in that would have prevented certain disorders and diseases as in:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutriti...nt_consumption

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soils back then were extremely rich and food was a lot more nutrient dense than today (not as much over farming and pouring chemicals into the ground).

also i would have to say that there was a vast knowledge in food availability ,from the land (you don't need to own a large farm , hunt animals all day or line up at the markets). much of this kind of info is almost non existent today.

edit:you need to look at the staple foods of each peoples and the region they lived in.

edit2: you would only guess people living in large cities that were dependent on food shipments would be affected the most by any shortages or "lack of coin". (much like today)

edit3: enough of this i think :yes: :sweatdrop:

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Originally Posted by Cute Wolf

I've heard that those woman warriors of Steppe Nomads cut their breasts, so they won't interfere with firing arrows.... Because of that, we just simply couldn't differentiate them with their male counterparts except for their face....

So, who feed their babies? Slave womans?

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Well I think thats BS, because I'd would be a very painful procedure and in some or maybe most of the cases lethal. I can imagine that this came up because nomadic women leading a more "athletic" lifestyle do indeed have smaller brest.
Besides: Havr you ever fired a bow? You need to have very huge boobs to be handicapped by them.

That's from the myth of the Amazons...

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

That's from the myth of the Amazons...

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I heard something similar, but that version said that the Amazons "burned" (can't find the right english word) only one of their breast in young age (I think the right - so it wouldn't hinder them in pulling back the string of the bow). So they could still there child later on, although like adressed earlier, I don't think there breast would have hindered them anyway. Unless in case of "archery backward" (or "Parthian Shot" as the english language calls it), but I'm not certain.

So it would be possible to have Nomadic female warriors appearing aswell in EB2? (unless it is rejected because of lack of evidence)

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

1) Chick = Female.
2) A noble and soldier would have access to a better diet.
3) Physical build still doesn't completely change proportions especially those of the face especially if no one is trying to hide their gender.

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1) I thought you were using the more narrow definition of chick, so I felt I had to respond to your and seienchin's posts.
2) True.
3) True, but the differences may well be too subtle to spot on the M2:TW engine.

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Originally Posted by Cute Wolf

I've heard that those woman warriors of Steppe Nomads cut their breasts, so they won't interfere with firing arrows....

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That's from Herodotus' description of the Amazons, is not? Given that the Amazons were fiction, I am not putting much faith in his account of them.

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Originally Posted by mountaingoat

soils back then were extremely rich and food was a lot more nutrient dense than today (not as much over farming and pouring chemicals into the ground).

also i would have to say that there was a vast knowledge in food availability ,from the land (you don't need to own a large farm , hunt animals all day or line up at the markets). much of this kind of info is almost non existent today.

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It's true that people in antiquity would be fitter, have a stronger immune system and a better diet than us (although food quality would be poorer without refrigerators, sterilization methods, insecticides and stringent food quality control). However, famine was a constant threat to the less well-off, and the nomads' lifestyle was though even by the standards of the day.

Also, you underestimating the effects of modern medicine on health. Not two centuries ago Rousseau wrote that it was a natural law for one child in two to die before reaching maturity, so why attempt to do anything about it? It's a testament to the effectiveness of antibiotics and, to a lesser extent, vaccination that we now consider good health as a right rather than a blessing.

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Originally Posted by HunGeneral

So it would be possible to have Nomadic female warriors appearing aswell in EB2? (unless it is rejected because of lack of evidence)

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...

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Originally Posted by Moros

I'm not one of these factions historians, so I could be wrong. But I believe they agreed not to make a female unit but potentially have a rare female within a unit.

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soils back then were extremely rich and food was a lot more nutrient dense than today (not as much over farming and pouring chemicals into the ground).

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It's true that people in antiquity would be fitter, have a stronger immune system and a better diet than us (although food quality would be poorer without refrigerators, sterilization methods, insecticides and stringent food quality control). However, famine was a constant threat to the less well-off, and the nomads' lifestyle was though even by the standards of the day.

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The crops we use today are simply far more nutritious. We are talking about 2000 years of selective breeding, and recently genetic modification, here.

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Originally Posted by Azathoth

The crops we use today are simply far more nutritious. We are talking about 2000 years of selective breeding, and recently genetic modification, here.

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Can you prove that? I saw a program on television which had a doctor state that oranges in the 1940's had considerably more vitamin c in them than they do today. The reasonings (as she gave them) was soil exhaustion and use of chemicals.

I can't prove anything, and neither can you. We don't actually have samples ancient plants to study.

My reasoning is that after thousands of years of breeding crops to be more nutritious and give higher yields, they are going to show some improvement in those areas.

On women fighting on the steppes: my impression is a few female heads on horse archers would be OK, and I hope they make it in. There are female warrior traditions around the world but they tend to range from extremely rare to plain mythical IIRC.

Its generally bad demographics to put your baby-makers in the battle line (although in a desperate last-ditch-struggle or street battle they'd sometimes pitch in, then as now). Maybe it was a social mechanism to thin out available noblewomen who might otherrwise marry below their station? Like nuns in medieval society.

On old tucker being better...well hmmm. Its a bit of a generalisation. Maybe there were some ancient oranges that were better than some modern oranges? There, thats a nice bland counter-generalisation:2thumbsup:.

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Originally Posted by Azathoth

I can't prove anything, and neither can you. We don't actually have samples ancient plants to study.

My reasoning is that after thousands of years of breeding crops to be more nutritious and give higher yields, they are going to show some improvement in those areas.

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Higher yield means more pounds per acre, but not necessarily more vitamins per fruit, so it depends on how you define nutritious. Modern food is certainly richer in energy, although given the rise in obesity this is probably a downside.

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Originally Posted by Cyclops

On women fighting on the steppes: my impression is a few female heads on horse archers would be OK, and I hope they make it in. There are female warrior traditions around the world but they tend to range from extremely rare to plain mythical IIRC.

Its generally bad demographics to put your baby-makers in the battle line (although in a desperate last-ditch-struggle or street battle they'd sometimes pitch in, then as now). Maybe it was a social mechanism to thin out available noblewomen who might otherrwise marry below their station? Like nuns in medieval society.

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There's a couple of other reasons why women are generally not warriors: check out this old TWC thread.

In certain mounted warfare based cultures, you do have cases of women rising up in the ranks because as long as they can shoot well they are better suited for the role. They have a smaller profile, are lighter, lower center of gravity, and more padding.

You have reports of this happening in Scythia and a few instances in Japan. While the ratio isn't known, it would have been a fairly noticable and regular amount for Heroditus to record people claiming what they claimed about the women of Scythia - militarily and socially.

Even the whole Griffin thing he wrote about in his Scythian Book has a grounding in fact with all those protoceratops fossils eroding out of the ground in those areas.

You have a similar thing with modern fighter pilots. Women are smaller so their circulitory system can handle extreme G's better.

gah , i hate getting into these type of arguing points across things :yes: .. i keep saying ill leave it at one thing because the scope for this argument is beyond what some might think :sweatdrop: and i do suck at getting my point across sometimes :wall: .. but i am passionate about this , so maybe this can be my last point? haha , i will not go into hugeeee detail ,so if anyone disagrees compeltly with me after this than we can consider my non reply to accepting that we have different point of views in the topic. (fine with me). :egypt:

well this goes to anyone else out there watching. :2thumbsup:


will give you some points to think on.

"modern" storage devices such as refrigeration , sterilization and storage ( plastics , metals , pesticides ). have produced many harmful affects , and some good.

nearly all "food grade" plastics are leaking phytoestrogens (as well as other goodies) into whatever is stored in them. and we get a nice dose of things like aluminum and other heavy metals in our water and metal cooking devices/ containers. ceramic and clay are best suited or wood .. steel , copper would be ok IMO. though some say that steel is not good.

refrigeration replaced the storage pits and storage houses , while a fridge is useful for a person you might want to consider that all food should be eaten fresh . with refrigeration, companies can afford to keep old produce out for even longer .. meanwhile once the produce has been picked it begins to decrease in nutritional value over time. So by the time you get that nice (gassed and chemically sprayed) spinach ( so it still holds its colour) from your local supermarket (or green grocer) . It most likely has been sitting on a shelf for a long time(depending on the demographic of your town) and is very depleted in minerals. AND THEN you store it in the fridge for longer.

before refrigeration , people used to naturally preserve foods for the winter , they would eat sprouted and fermented foods which are activated and thus increasing their nutrient content significantly.

pasteurization kills off all beneficial properties of dairy .. and most dairy products come from unhealthy hormone fed (or GM soy fed) livestock. (unhealthy livestock create unhealthy meat). Just look it up if you want.

plants have a natural defense system ( when they are in a healthy environment ) and do not need to be sprayed with harmful chemicals that we in turn must ingest. :no:

it may be difficult sometimes to think that with our "innovative" technology , the standards handed down to us by those in the higher up can end up being harmful to us.


now for the selective breeding.

you can take a plant growing in the wild and compare nutritional values to your average farm , the one growing in nature will beat it hands down , majority(if not all) of the time. so a wild plant might be in its original state for thousands of years untouched .. i have not come across any findings that says that they lack anything at all!

as stated previously , with modern farming methods our soils are depleted of key nutrients(not going into detail with this just google it) , so our food is no longer getting much of what it needs. The nutritional quality of our plants are not the "best in 3000 years" just because they are still around today. (many excellent foods are almost non existent , but read on)

Food does not change it's DNA structure (unless we alter it) so each type of food typically has x amount nutrients / calories etc at its healthiest .We can always add an exception in a rare case, but in general, would you not agree with that?

Also we have to consider that when selectively breeding with modern farming methods , we would use many nutrients in the soil . so if i were to selectively breed some fine watermelons the soil is going to be depleted quite quick . i might have some fine looking watermelons , but this has nothing to do with their nutrient density for the most part. Their weight , water content does not= nutrient density.

there are some seed savers use heirloom seeds , some of them dating back a long time , and if you encounter any you will find that most of our food is manipulated onto our shelves and that many "super healthy" foods no longer exist , to name a few ... blue lettuce , purple carrots , blue potatoes , red and blue corn (colour shows rich iron , copper and other nutrient content).


i am not going to get into GM , but will state that i am against it.

i will end with saying that the opportunity for good health and physical condition would of been presented to people (pretty much shoved in their faces) with little work back in times gone by(actually not even that far back) , if you understood food availability / had access to a steady supply of balanced food.(though this does not mean everyone choose to do so). Where as now we have to fight just to get to good health , which is IMO our birthright.

phew :sweatdrop: :smile:


edit: ahh yes ,ludens good point on your previous post

The simplist way of arguing that is that Humans over the course of 5000 years of civilization have damaged the ecosystem and degraded the quality of the soils by deforestation and over exploiting. From Mesopotamia to Palestine to the Nile, the fertility has gone down and desertification has gone up.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

The simplist way of arguing that is that Humans over the course of 5000 years of civilization have damaged the ecosystem and degraded the quality of the soils by deforestation and over exploiting. From Mesopotamia to Palestine to the Nile, the fertility has gone down and desertification has gone up.

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Depends where you are though, where good farming methods (crop rotation, letting feilds lie fallow for a season, correct use of fertillisers etc) are practiced the soil fertility is stable. the places that have seen major drops in fertility are sub saharan africa, the middle east, parts of asia, south america and the great plains in north america.

Yes, but many places that were the centers of the great civilizations of antiquity are pretty jacked up compared to back then.

@Ludens: Actually one could have female bodies and female heads together by merging head and body into one.
(Milkshape: Select the group of the head and the group of the body and use the "regroup" function.
This has to be done with the men, too. Doing a lot of duplicating, variety of head-body combination would also be granted.

(hoping that my english is ok)

It wouldn't really matter if female heads were placed on male bodies, since a woman with the physical ability to fight in a battle would not be very slender and "feminine" so if she was wearing thick clothes or armour the only distinction would be in the face. I'm sure we've all seen women where you have to take a second(or third) look to see what gender she is (also vice versa), that is the type of woman who would be in a battle.

@ antisocialmunky

That's interesting stuff.

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Originally Posted by mountaingoat

it may be difficult sometimes to think that with our "innovative" technology , the standards handed down to us by those in the higher up can end up being harmful to us.

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Very true indeed. The emphasis placed by our economical system on efficiency and direct economical gain leads to overexploitation and prioritizing yield over other aspects, such as nutrient content and long-term sustainability.

However, there also many interest-groups that distrust commercial technology on principle while being uncritical of "natural" produce. It's not my field of biology, but I have some issues with many of your arguments. I would not be so quick to claim that food produced with modern techniques is of poorer quality than that of "natural" sources. The former is under far greater scrutiny than the latter.

Furthermore, thanks to science we are aware that these issues exist. In Antiquity only the barest essentials of nutrition and food hygiene were understood. Although there is more to Classical medicine than funny recipes on the uses of donkey liver and goat testes, it does give you an impression of how well they understood the human body.

Anyway, I agree that our technology has had unwanted side-effects on the quality of food, but I disagree completely with your statement that good food and good health were easy to obtain in antiquity.

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Originally Posted by Poka

@Ludens: Actually one could have female bodies and female heads together by merging head and body into one.
(Milkshape: Select the group of the head and the group of the body and use the "regroup" function.
This has to be done with the men, too. Doing a lot of duplicating, variety of head-body combination would also be granted.

(hoping that my english is ok)

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No problem. Would the M2:TW engine accept that, though?

Adding to the soil degradation, we've also built most of our cities on our most fertile land. London, Paris, New York, and if you want to go way back, any one in the Fertile Crescent, all sit on some of the richest soil, now unusable partly to due to ignorance and partly to sheer lazyness.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

You have reports of this happening in Scythia and a few instances in Japan. While the ratio isn't known, it would have been a fairly noticable and regular amount for Heroditus to record people claiming what they claimed about the women of Scythia - militarily and socially.

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Would the ratio really have to be all that high though? Remember that most of Herodotus' sources were simply average people, and to the average Hellene, wouldn't any participation of women in the military be considered strange enough to report to him?

I'm not trying to claim that his account is wrong, we have little else (except scant archaeological evidence) to prove it either way. However, Herodotus has been known to exaggerate on occasion, and if his source is another Hellene, who would almost certainly be astounded by any female military participation whatsoever, it would make sense that the situation might be exaggerated. To someone whose culture finds the idea of women fighting in the military absurd, a culture where this is an uncommon practice looks like a culture where it is a common practice, if you get what I'm saying. People tend to notice and exaggerate the exceptions, especially when it is an exception that is incomprehensible to them.

Of course it may be true. All I'm saying is that I don't think the fact that it was noticeable enough to report is reason enough to claim that it was a common practice. People tend to latch onto and focus on the exceptions in cultures different from theirs in order to differentiate that culture from their own, even if the practices in question are not that common.

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Originally Posted by Ludens

No problem. Would the M2:TW engine accept that, though?

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It would, but we wouldn't do that. It severely limits unit variability, which we prefer to keep as much as possible.

Foot

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Originally Posted by WinsingtonIII

Would the ratio really have to be all that high though? Remember that most of Herodotus' sources were simply average people, and to the average Hellene, wouldn't any participation of women in the military be considered strange enough to report to him?

I'm not trying to claim that his account is wrong, we have little else (except scant archaeological evidence) to prove it either way. However, Herodotus has been known to exaggerate on occasion, and if his source is another Hellene, who would almost certainly be astounded by any female military participation whatsoever, it would make sense that the situation might be exaggerated. To someone whose culture finds the idea of women fighting in the military absurd, a culture where this is an uncommon practice looks like a culture where it is a common practice, if you get what I'm saying. People tend to notice and exaggerate the exceptions, especially when it is an exception that is incomprehensible to them.

Of course it may be true. All I'm saying is that I don't think the fact that it was noticeable enough to report is reason enough to claim that it was a common practice. People tend to latch onto and focus on the exceptions in cultures different from theirs in order to differentiate that culture from their own, even if the practices in question are not that common.

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However if you compare those accounts to the accounts of the women of other peoples fighting. They are more or less descriptions of one off events like the Cimbri women fighting to the death, women leading rebellions, women rallying the troops, the women of SPARTA!!!! etc. They considered it an oddity.

However when Heroditus interviewed the locals that routinely had contact with the Scythians, they refered to it like a common thing. And its not just the military. Heroditus wrote of a certain Scythian tribe where the women were counted equally as the men were. Even today in parts of the steppe the woman is regarded as the boss of the house while hte man is the boss of the outside. If the men were out campaigning the women would have to keep down the fort, feed themselves by hunting, herd the animals, be able to ride to keep up with the herds etc.

On the archaelogical front, you then have the rich burials of females with weapons that make up a noticable amount of the total burials attributed to Scythians derived tribes(25% so says wikipedia).

So that's why I'm saying that it was a regular and noticable occurance. The evidence seems to indicate against a society that relegated women to a purely secondary position. Instead it does not indicate against a society that gave women a fair degree of social mobility. In this context the idea of a society that produces of a noticeable amount of female warriors is not particularly unlikely. Afterall, military make up reflects the society its based on.

You also have to take into account that the Scythians did a fair amount of trading so they had regular commercial contact with the city dwellers around. You also have to take into account that Heroditus didn't just talk to Pentheus, dirt farmer of Armenia - he would have visited cities and talked to people who knew something about the geography.

Of course things are exaggerated and Heroditus wrote down whatever he heard, but people aren't going to describe the presence of one woman in battle the only time they see them as 'Scythian women were important in their society.' People always get enamored by the idea of 'female warrior' that they ignore the context of a 'female run society.'

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

However if you compare those accounts to the accounts of the women of other peoples fighting. They are more or less descriptions of one off events like the Cimbri women fighting to the death, women leading rebellions, women rallying the troops, the women of SPARTA!!!! etc. They considered it an oddity.

However when Heroditus interviewed the locals that routinely had contact with the Scythians, they refered to it like a common thing. And its not just the military. Heroditus wrote of a certain Scythian tribe where the women were counted equally as the men were. Even today in parts of the steppe the woman is regarded as the boss of the house while hte man is the boss of the outside. If the men were out campaigning the women would have to keep down the fort, feed themselves by hunting, herd the animals, be able to ride to keep up with the herds etc.

On the archaelogical front, you then have the rich burials of females with weapons that make up a noticable amount of the total burials attributed to Scythians derived tribes(25% so says wikipedia).

So that's why I'm saying that it was a regular and noticable occurance. The evidence seems to indicate against a society that relegated women to a purely secondary position. Instead it does not indicate against a society that gave women a fair degree of social mobility. In this context the idea of a society that produces of a noticeable amount of female warriors is not particularly unlikely. Afterall, military make up reflects the society its based on.

You also have to take into account that the Scythians did a fair amount of trading so they had regular commercial contact with the city dwellers around. You also have to take into account that Heroditus didn't just talk to Pentheus, dirt farmer of Armenia - he would have visited cities and talked to people who knew something about the geography.

Of course things are exaggerated and Heroditus wrote down whatever he heard, but people aren't going to describe the presence of one woman in battle the only time they see them as 'Scythian women were important in their society.' People always get enamored by the idea of 'female warrior' that they ignore the context of a 'female run society.'

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Good points, you know more about this than I do, I was just trying to conjure up what I had learned about Herodotus years ago and thought I remembered him being somewhat prone to exaggeration. I wasn't really implying that it was an exception in Scythian society (I agree the evidence points against that), I was just saying it may have been more uncommon than we have come to believe, due to the process of exaggeration throughout history and in Herodotus' lifetime as well. There's a whole spectrum of "regular and noticeable" occurrences. All I'm saying is that even though evidence implies it was regular activity, it may not have been as overwhelmingly common as we think. That wasn't the clearest way of putting that but I hope you get what I mean.

Additionally, the fact that the burials of females were rich implies that these can only tell us something about the life of female nobility. Perhaps the nobility was fairly egalitarian towards women, but the amount of gender inequality grew as one descended the social ladder. In fact, I really wouldn't be surprised at all if this were true. Scythian women almost certainly had it many times better in terms of equality than the women of many other ancient societies, that's clear. However, I think that applying the term "female-run society" is pretty idealistic. At the top we seem to see hard evidence (archaeology) that females were regarded as somewhat equal to men, but the patriarchal household may still have dominated at the lower levels.

Who knows? Maybe I'm just skeptical because I don't want to believe that ancient societies may have been more egalitarian than modern western society. That's a pretty sad commentary on "progress."

'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way.

Yeah, I said something to the same effect above that EB should only include some women in the Noble units. They would be the ones that could afford to goto war. The regular women would be watching things back home. I don't know though... the campaigns of Genghis Khan, he's said to have had the wives and other women of his troops ride into battle to padd his numbers and break the enemy morale. However Mongols and Western Steppe peoples are quite different and the Scythians never went on campaign quite THAT long.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way.

Yeah, I said something to the same effect above that EB should only include some women in the Noble units. They would be the ones that could afford to goto war. The regular women would be watching things back home. I don't know though... the campaigns of Genghis Khan, he's said to have had the wives and other women of his troops ride into battle to padd his numbers and break the enemy morale. However Mongols and Western Steppe peoples are quite different and the Scythians never went on campaign quite THAT long.

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I'd agree with both points, I was implying the same thing you said of the term progress myself when I put it in quotation marks. I'm just not sure if the evidence is convincing enough that the average woman would go to war. The women should be included in noble units.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

'Progress' is a modern construct about how newer is better which is BS. Things just change with time, it can go either way...

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Yes indeed, or in multiple directions at once. The more things change, the more they stay the same...except for the bits that change.

The representation of Skythian women warriors is worth this debate. We do have some steppe people burying women with weapons which are certainly status markers, but quite possibly also occupation markers. We have more and less dodgy references to warrior women, especially among steppe peoples.

Were the Skythians a confederation of tribes with varying rank, paying tribute in cattle and service up the chain? It may be whole tribes ranked as warrior class, women and men included, so there might be a case for women among less-than-elite HA's. In a warrior culture weapons are the status marker, but military service (for the proportion of women fit for this service) might be a corollary or even a requirement of that.

(Cf women like St. Joan, Elizabeth 1 wearing armour, not because they entered the fray but because it was pretty much a required leadership token.)

Of the course the question of physical capacity is a fair one. I'd note that men unable to bear arms might well be excluded from high status groups (cf Talleyrand was excluded from inheriting his fathers title because he was lame, a sort of barbaric holdover from a similar Frankish tradition I guess). Fewer women would be able to carry the heavy armour we see Noble HA's wearing.

If bearing arms gave greater status, and some women were eligible for that status, then they might paricipate at the level of their physical capacity: a greater number with less armour, weilding a bow and rather less bow/lance armed semi-catas. In this rather hypothetical situation we might see more female heads in the lesser-status HA's.

Its all interesting speculation and I feel anti-social's position is a fair one: a few female heads in the better class HA's is probably to best bet.

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Originally Posted by MeinPanzer

What are you writing on specifically, what time period are you concerned with (the entire sweep from the 8th c. BC to the first centuries AD, or just one period?), what languages are you able to read, and what sources have you already consulted?

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My specific question is: To what extent is archeology able to shed light on social organisation? We have been asked to select one or more funerary sites to examine so I chose Pazyryk and the Altai burials. Most of my sources (numbering about 12 so far) deal with early to late Iron Age Scythians and Sarmatians as well as the Caucasian (Kolban?) culture. I can read English and French. Unfortunately I have not managed to get access to Rudenko's book on Pazyryk. Any suggestions?

@ Cyclops

That's quite true. That's why female warriors are most often associated with ranged weapons if you discount the things like the female gladiators of Rome.

I'm not going to get into the issue of armor. I think they would have been able to use it quite fine with the proper training.

@ ziegenpeter

Wut?

While this is all very fascinating, I'm wondering how all this is directly related to the question whether female warriors will be depicted in nomadic units in EBII?

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Originally Posted by The General

While this is all very fascinating, I'm wondering how all this is directly related to the question whether female warriors will be depicted in nomadic units in EBII?

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It isn't. I've created a new thread for this discussion: is progress real?

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Originally Posted by Brennus

My specific question is: To what extent is archeology able to shed light on social organisation? We have been asked to select one or more funerary sites to examine so I chose Pazyryk and the Altai burials. Most of my sources (numbering about 12 so far) deal with early to late Iron Age Scythians and Sarmatians as well as the Caucasian (Kolban?) culture. I can read English and French. Unfortunately I have not managed to get access to Rudenko's book on Pazyryk. Any suggestions?

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Well, I'd say that you should really try to get a hold of Rudenko's book on the Pazyryk finds, because it's by far the best publication on them and those basically are the rich Pazyryk finds. For other general sources, you can try:

Veronique Schiltz, Les scythes et les nomades des steppes : VIIIe siècle avant J.-C. - Ier siècle après J.-C. - A very good, beautifully illustrated work on all ancient nomadic peoples included under the general title of "Scythians." It includes some stuff on the Pazyryk finds.

Natalia Polosmak, trans. H.P. Francfort, “Un nouveau kourgane à « tombe gelée » de l'Altaï (rapport préliminaire),” in Arts Asiatiques 46 (1991), 5-12 - A good general article in French on a well-preserved "middle class" Pazyryk burial of a man and a woman, both armed as warriors.

Iaroslav Lebedynsky, Les Saces : les "Scythes" d’Asie, VIIIe siècle av. J.-C. - IVe siècle apr. J.-C. - Like Schiltz's work above, this is a good overview of the many peoples included under the title of "Saka," and includes a good portion discussing the various finds of the Pazyryk culture.

I can give you some more specific sources, but how much access do you have to archaeological journals?

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Originally Posted by The General

While this is all very fascinating, I'm wondering how all this is directly related to the question whether female warriors will be depicted in nomadic units in EBII?

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Originally Posted by Ludens

It isn't. I've created a new thread for this discussion: is progress real?

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Yeah seriously this thread went from a female warriors dicussion, to a farming disscusion, and back again. All i have to say is wow.

But seriously, why isn't Meinpanzer on the EBII team?

Really, Kingdoms work with Random parts, if you would add female parts, you would get soldiers with boobies and a moustache, not really something I'd like to see...

There are set models slots for officiers aren't there? Can you stick something with ovaries and without a moustache in there?

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Originally Posted by Skullheadhq

Really, Kingdoms work with Random parts, if you would add female parts, you would get soldiers with boobies and a moustache, not really something I'd like to see...

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no you wouldn't.

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Originally Posted by antisocialmunky

There are set models slots for officiers aren't there? Can you stick something with ovaries and without a moustache in there?

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Female officers is sooooo 21st century

Question for MeinPanzer (and yes everyone I know it isn't relative to this thread) but what do you actually do?