L'Amazone - Versailles, France
Posted by: Metro2
N 48° 48.406 E 002° 06.739
31U E 434822 N 5406355
The Amazons were a mythological nation of women warriors constantly challenging the Greeks and their gods.
Waymark Code: WMD036
Location: Île-de-France, France
Date Posted: 10/31/2011
Views: 20
This 1693 marble sculpture entitled "L'Amazone" depicts a woman wearing a tunic and grabbing her bow. She is wearing a quiver full of arrows and has a shield and other weapons at her feet.
The work is by Jacques Buirette (1631-1699).
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Amazons were said to have lived in Pontus, which is part of modern day Turkey near the shore of the Euxine Sea (the Black Sea). There they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen named Hippolyta or Hippolyte ("loose, unbridled mare"). The Amazons were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, and Paphos. According to the dramatist Aeschylus, in the distant past they had lived in Scythia (modern Crimea), at the Palus Maeotis ("Lake Maeotis", the Sea of Azov), but later moved to Themiscyra on the River Thermodon (the Terme river in northern Turkey). Herodotus called them Androktones ("killers of men"), and he stated that in the Scythian language they were called Oiorpata, which he asserted had this meaning."