The Amazing Amazon

Were the Amazons, those famous fighting females of Greek myth, giant women? In popular culture we often use the word “Amazon” for exceptionally tall, robust, athletic women. And it is commonly believed that the mythic Amazons were giantesses.

Where does this image originate? In classical antiquity, the Greeks pictured the great heroes and heroines of the glorious days of myth as giants, at least 3 times bigger than ordinary men and women. That means the Greeks imagined Heracles, Achilles, and Atalanta as larger-than-life figures of superhuman strength compared to puny men and women of the present day. And since the celebrated heroes of myth battled fierce Amazons, their equals in physical strength, those formidable women were also assumed to tower over ordinary people.

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