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Pantea Arteshbod, a female Persian commander during the reign of Cyrus the Great, was integral to maintaining law and order after Cyrus's Neo-Babylonian conquest. And history reveals countless examples of real-life female warriors, like Cynane, half-sister to Alexander the Great, who came from a tradition of warrior women and was taught the same military skills as the young Alexander. 'Many ancient cultures besides Greece told exhilarating stories of warrior women – such tales are found in Persia, Egypt, Rome, Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia, India, and China,' explains Mayor, who also runs a Facebook group, Amazons Ancient and Modern, for fellow scholars and enthusiasts. Real-life warrior women existed far beyond the Scythians and Sarmatians, however. Both the Scythians and Sarmatians are connected to modern-day Iran. The Amazons and Scythians, slated to fight one another, would instead join forces, whose descendants are the Sarmatians. Sent out to sea, The Amazons eventually entered Scythia near the Black Sea. They would meet their ultimate fate at an encounter with the Greeks in the battle of Thermodon. They pillaged the Persian Empire and procreated with neighbouring tribes, keeping the baby girls to raise as the next generation of warriors. Even the word 'Amazon', meaning 'warrior', is likely rooted in the Iranian language.Īccording to Herodotus, a 5th-Century Greek writer and geographer often credited with being the first historian, the Amazons maintained an idyllic all-female existence in modern-day Turkey. By the 470s, the Greeks began to refer to portrayals of the Persians as the Amazons, turning their real-life adversaries into mythological folklore. Experts have identified depictions of the women in battle with Greek men on vases and other ceramics as dressed in Persian-style clothing: the Kandys cloak, the Anaxyrides trousers, the Persikay shoes. The great rivalries of the ancient Greeks and Persians are well documented in Greek art, history and mythology, so much so that historians of Ancient Persia rely on the Greek interpretation of the region to unlock its history. DNA testing was due to take place on other warrior graves, 38 of which are still intact, but according to Mayor's contacts in Iran, that DNA research was halted in August 2020 due to a lack of resources. Archaeologist Alireza Hejebri-Nobari confirmed in a 2004 interview that the DNA found in one belonged to a woman. In the northwestern Iranian city of Tabriz, 109 warrior graves were unearthed. Excavations within the modern borders of Iran have revealed the existence of female warriors. The Sarmatians were a people of Iranian heritage, with men and women skilled in horsemanship and battle. In December 2019, the graves of four female warriors from the 4th Century BC Sarmatian region were found in the village of Devitsa, in what is now Western Russia. While the story of a race of warrior women first appeared in Greek mythology, excavations across the north and east of the Black Sea region have revealed that warrior women like the Amazons existed in real life. The Amazons of Greek mythology and the real-life warrior women that led to this iconic modern-day Wonder Woman might, in fact, have roots in ancient Persia – modern-day Iran.

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Contemporary audiences may recognise the character of Wonder Woman – as played by Gal Gadot in Jenkins' films, or perhaps US actress Lynda Carter, star of the 1970s ABC and CBS TV series, or as the original comic book character, which first appeared in the US in 1941 – more than the stories that inspired the character. These are mere blink-and-you'll-miss-it nods to Prince's Amazonian backstory. Both films contain brief early sequences, told in flashback, where we find a young Diana Prince on her birth island of Themyscira, competing alongside veteran woman warriors in tournaments of Olympic proportions. Wonder Woman (2017) takes place in Europe during World War One, exploring the traumatising effects of warfare on humanity its successor is situated in Washington DC, 70 years later.

Truth-seeking compels us to ask complex questions about history and cultural memory – and relates to the inspiration for Wonder Woman's own origin story. The concept of truth is central to Patty Jenkins’ film, Wonder Woman 1984, the second in her superheroine franchise.

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