Trial by Amazon : thoughts on the first Amazons in Greek art
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To Heinrich Schliemann's stunning record of archaeological firsts can be added the discovery, among a handful of pictorial sherds excavated at Tiryns, of the earliest known Amazon in Greek art. Admittedly he did not recognize the fragmentary image as such, and his description of the sherds with "legs of an upright-standing warrior turned towards the right, with a part of the coat of mail with meander stripes," is as far as anyone could decipher this image for half a century.l Starting from the small fragments found by Schliemann and Wilhelm Dorpfeld in their Tiryns excavations of 1884-85, and augmented by Emil Kunze during his 1926 excavations, the pieces gradually were reassembled into a small terracotta shield of Subgeometric style. This remarkable object has figured in the literature on the Amazon warrior as mythic and artistic topos, yet it tends to be subsumed into interpretations of later material rather than analyzed within its own cultural context. That the Amazons entered Greek art on the first waves of orientalizing representations of myth may occasion little surprise, and their introduction within the competitive milieu of the early seventh century Argive plain --home of Bronze Age heroes and object of intercommunal conflict-- seems satisfyingly appropriate. Yet these warrior women are not strongly associated with the Argolid in myth, art, or cult. Tombs of Amazons, for example, are attested in Attica, Boeotia, Euboea, Megara, and Thessaly, but not the Argolid. One promising but overlooked starting point from which to explore this puzzle is the ritual context in which the Tiryns shield was found. I am pleased to continue the discussion of this provocative object as a tribute to Gene Lane, who in his teaching as in his research has demonstrated the importance of resiting ritual artifacts within their social and historical settings. It seems especially appropriate that I began my study of this artifact at a cozy desk in North Carolina, Gene and Carol's beloved second home.