"Amazon Warriors - Did Indeed Fight and Die Like Men" ह्या पुस्तकाचा सारांश

मध्य आशियातून भारतात स्थलांतरित झालेल्या लाड सका(शाखीय) वाणी समाजाच्या "सका/शक/Scythian" वंशाच्या पूर्वजांची ओळख समस्त जगाला व्हावी या उद्देशाने Irma Marx या लेखकाने "The Scythians" या नावाची एक पुस्तिका प्रकाशित केली आहे.सका/शक/Scythian" लोकांचा मोठा अभ्यास जगभर चालू आहे.रोज नवनवीन माहितीवर प्रकाश पडत आहे.त्यावर समस्त लाड सका (शाखीय) वाणी समाज बांधवांचे लक्ष असले पाहिजे.

मध्य आशियातील सायबेरिया प्रांतात, अल्ताई पर्वत रांगांमधे रहाणार्‍या, इराणी मूळ असलेल्या या "सका/शक/Scythian" टोळ्यांना "Kindred Scythians/ Eastern Scythians) म्हणून ओळखले जाते. हेच महाराष्ट्रातील लाड सका/शाखीय वाणी समाज बांधवांचे पूर्वज आहेत.(संदर्भ - Herodotus) इराणी मूळ असलेल्या या भटक्या जमातीचे लोक इ.स.पूर्व दुसर्‍या शतकापासून ते पार इ.स.च्या चवथ्या शतकापर्यंत टप्प्याटप्प्याने सायबेरिया प्रांतातून Sogdiana, Bactria, Arachosia, Gandhara, Sindh, Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra या क्रमाने उत्तर व पश्चिम भारतात स्थलांतरित झाल्या व "भारतीय शक/Indo-Scythians" म्हणून ओळखल्या जाऊ लागल्या. लाड सका(शाखीय) वाणी समाजाच्या "सका/शक/Scythian" वंशाच्या लढवय्या स्त्री पूर्वजांची(Amazon) खालील माहिती इ.स.२०१४ साली SIMON WORRALL यांनी लिहिलेल्या "Amazon Warriors - Did Indeed Fight and Die Like Men" या पुस्तक परीक्षणात खालील संकेतस्थळावर वाचायला मिळते :- https://api.nationalgeographic.com/.../141029-amazons...

या माहितीचा सारांश खालील प्रमाणे :-

१. Archaeology shows that these fierce Scythian women(Amazon) women also smoked pot, got tattoos, killed and loved men.

२. The Amazons got a bum rap in antiquity.They wore trousers.They smoked pot, covered their skin with tattoos, rode horses, and fought as hard as the guys.

३. Legends sprang up like weeds.They cut off their breasts to fire their bows better! They mutilated or killed their boy children! Modern (mostly male) scholars continued the confabulations. The Amazons were hard-core feminists. Man haters. Delinquent mothers. Lesbians etc.

४. Adrienne Mayor, author of "The Amazons" dispels these myths and takes us inside the truly wild and wonderful world of these ancient warrior women.

५. The real Amazons were long believed to be purely imaginary. They were the mythical warrior women who were the archenemies of the ancient Greeks.

६. Every Greek hero or champion, from Hercules to Theseus and Achilles, had to prove his mettle by fighting a powerful warrior queen(e.g.Hippolyta, Antiope, Thessalia).

७. Archaeology has now proven without a doubt that there really were women fitting the description that the Greeks gave us of Amazons and warrior women.

८. The Greeks located them in the areas north and east of the Mediterranean on the vast steppes of Eurasia. Archaeologists have been digging up thousands of graves of people called Scythians by the Greeks. They turn out to be people whose women fought, hunted, rode horses, used bows and arrows, just like the men. (See "Masters of Gold.")

९. Archaeologists have been excavating Scythian kurgans, which are the burial mounds of these nomadic peoples.

१०. Scythians had horse-centred lifestyles, ranging across vast distances from the Black Sea all the way to Mongolia.They lived in small tribes, so it makes sense that everyone in the tribe is a stakeholder. They all have to contribute to defense and to war efforts and hunting. They all have to be able to defend themselves.

११. The great equalizer for those peoples was the domestication of horses and the invention of horse riding, followed by the perfection of the Scythian bow, which is smaller and very powerful.

१२. Archaeologists have found skeletons buried with bows and arrows and quivers and spears and horses. At first they assumed that anyone buried with weapons in that region must have been a male warrior. But with the advent of DNA testing and other bioarchaeological scientific analysis, they've found that about one-third of all Scythian women are buried with weapons and have war injuries just like the men. The women were also buried with knives and daggers and tools. So burial with masculine-seeming grave goods is no longer taken as an indicator of a male warrior. It's overwhelming proof that there were women answering to the description of the ancient Amazons.

१३. The notion that "Amazon" meant "without breast" was invented by the Greek historian Hellanikos in the fifth century B.C.He tried to force a Greek meaning on the foreign loan word: a for "lack" and "mazon," which sounded a bit like the Greek word for breast. His idea was rejected by other historians of his own day, and no ancient artist bought the story.

१४. The strong bond of sisterhood was a famous trait in classical art and literature about Amazons. But it was modern people who interpreted that as a sexual preference for women.

१५. The Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva declared that Amazons were symbolic of lesbianism in antiquity. Then others took that up. But the ancient Greeks didn't think of them as lesbians. They described them as lovers of men, actually. Man-killers and man lovers.

१६. The Greeks were both fascinated and appalled by such independent Amaon women.They were so different from their wives and daughters.Yet there was a fascination.They were captivated by them.Pictures of Amazons on vase paintings always show them as beautiful, active, spirited, courageous, and brave.

१७. Amazons smoked pot and drank a powerful concoction of fermented mare's milk called kumis, which they used in rituals.

१८. Amazons consumed hemp(cannabis) & used to get intoxicated from the smoke of it and then would get up and dance and shout and yell with joy. Archaeologists are finding proof of this in the graves. Every Scythian man and woman was buried with a hemp-smoking kit, including a little charcoal brazier.

१९. Herodotus also described a technique in which Amazons would build a sauna-type arrangement of felt tents, probably in wintertime on the steppes. He describes it as like a tepee with a felt or leather canopy. They would take the hemp-smoking equipment inside the tent and get high. Archaeologists have found the makings of those tents in many Scythian graves.

२०. Archaeologists have also found the remains of kumis, the fermented mare's milk.The athor has given a recipe in the book for a freezing technique they used to raise its potency.

२१. There are a lot of tattoos beautifully,lovingly detailed tattoos in images of Thracian and Scythian women on vase paintings.Ancient Greek historians described the tattooing practices of the culturally related tribes of Eurasia.According to one account, Scythian women taught the Thracian women how to tattoo.We also now have archaeological evidence that Amazon-like women were tattooed. Tattoo kits been discovered in ancient Scythian burials. The frozen bodies of several heavily tattooed Scythian men and women have been recovered from graves. The famous Ice Princess is just one example—her tattoos of deer call to mind the tattoos depicted in Greek vase paintings.

२२. The Greeks had lots of slaves from the Black Sea area, and they were all tattooed.They thought of tattoos as a sort of punishment.

लाड सका(शाखीय) वाणी समाजाच्या "सका/शक/Scythian" वंशाच्या या पूर्वजांचा सुमारे ५०,००० वर्षांचा इतिहास आपण सर्वांनी या अभ्यासगटात वाचलाच असेल. त्यामध्ये हे "सका/शक/Scythian" वंशाचे लोक मध्य आशियातील "सायबेरिया" या प्रांतातून भारतात स्थलांतरित झाल्याचा इतिहास क्रमवार मांडला होता.त्याला पुष्टी देणारे हे संशोधन आहे.या संशोधनाच्या पार्श्वभूमीवर लाड सका(शाखीय) वाणी समाजाच्या कुलदेवता,कुलाचार, कुल,कुलग्राम,कुलनाम,गोत्र,धार्मिक संकल्पना,सामाजिक चालीरिती या गोष्टींचा सखोल अभ्यास होणे आवश्यक आहे.त्याचा उहापोह या अभ्यासगटात वेळोवेळी केलेलाच आहे.तो सर्वांनी अवश्य वाचावा व आपल्या बहुमूल्य प्रतिक्रिया या अभ्यासगटात अवश्य नोंदवाव्या.ही नम्र विनंती.