There’s a lot of Amazon buzz lately.
Although my hometown Pittsburgh can hardly contain its excitement over the remote possibility of being selected as the location for the next Amazon headquarters, that’s not the Amazon I mean.
I’m thinking about the Viking warrior who was buried in Sweden over 1,000 years ago. The grave, which also contained two horse skeletons and a cache of weapons, was discovered in the 1880s, so it’s not a recent find. What is new is that the DNA test of the bones revealed a big surprise. The Norse fighter was female. Thirty-something and standing at five and a half feet tall, this lady was an Amazon in her times.
I have been a fan of Amazon women ever since I used to watch Xena: Warrior Princess on TV. Those were the days that I squeezed in a workout on the Nordic Track while my infant son napped. It was my guilty pleasure. I loved watching Xena, who was so strong, smart and in-charge, she could have kicked bad-guy butt with her bone-crushing lady hands tied behind her back.
I understand, though, that outside the television fantasy world of the 90s, chances are that real Viking women did what all medieval women did, which was to keep house and make bread and babies. So the thought of an authentic woman warrior, buried with all the pomp and circumstance of a formidable and respected fighter/leader, was an exciting discovery.
Unfortunately, other scientists are saying Whoa! Hold your sacrificial horses. If this lady was so lethal, why doesn’t she have any war wounds, like broken bones or ax marks on her skull? And who says her girl bones didn’t somehow get mixed up with boy bones over the last thousand years? Some experts are suspicious that the quick progression from evidence to speculation happened because the idea of a female warrior was so “sexy” that researchers may not have given as much weight to other evidence that supported a different conclusion.
That I understand. I don’t study Vikings, but I, too, badly want a Viking warrior woman to be real.
I don’t know what conclusion scientists and researchers will come to in the future, but for a few days, I liked living in a world where Amazon-like women defied the odds and wielded power and influence beyond expectation.
At least I can still root for the other Amazon to come to Pittsburgh.
And for $54.99, I can buy Xena: Warrior Princess – The Complete Series on Amazon.com.
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photo credit: V Threepio <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/12197663@N02/36472138812″>San Diego Comic Con 2017 Cosplay</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/”>(license)</a>
photo credit: JeepersMedia <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/39160147@N03/15544670013″>Amazon.com</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>(license)</a>