JJ-TWTAZ-01 - Penthesilea

Traditionally, the Trojan War arose from a sequence of events beginning with a quarrel between the goddesses Hera, Athena and Aphrodite. Eris the goddess of discord, was not invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis, and so arrived bearing a gift. A golden apple, inscribed “for the fairest”.

Each of the goddesses claimed to be the “fairest”, and the rightful owner of the apple. They submitted the judgement to a shepherd they encountered tending his flock. Each of the goddesses promised the young man a boon in return for his favour. Power, wisdom, or love. The youth, in fact Paris, a Trojan prince who had been raised in the countryside, chose love, and awarded the apple to Aphrodite.

As his reward, Aphrodite caused Helen, the Queen of Sparta, and the most beautiful of all women, to fall in love with Paris.
The judgement of Paris earned him the ire of both Hera and Athena, and when Helen left her husband, Menelaus, the Spartan king, for Paris of Troy, Menelaus called upon all the kings and princes of Greece to wage war upon Troy.

Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon King of Mycenae, led an expedition of Achaean troops to Troy and besieged the city for ten years because of Paris’ insult. After the death of many heroes, including the Achaeans, Achilles, Ajax and the Trojans Hector and Paris, the city fell to the ruse of the Trojan Horse.

The Achaeans slaughtered the Trojans, except for some of the women and children whom they kept or sold as slaves. They desecrated the temples, thus earning the wrath of the gods. Few of the Achaeans returned safely to their homes, and many founded colonies in distant shores. The Romans later traced their origin to Aeneas, Aphrodite’s son and one of the Trojans, who was said to have led the surviving Trojans to modern day Italy.

The Trojans, too had their semi-divine heroes and these included Hector (son of Priam), Aeneas, Sarpedon, and Glaucus, just to name a few. They also had help from the gods, receiving assistance during the battle from Apollo, Aphrodite, Ares and Leto.

THE AMAZONS

The Amazons were a race of female warriors in Greek mythology, who dwelt in the region of modern-day Ukraine. Two of the Amazon queens were Penthesilea, who took part in the Trojan War, and her sister Hippolyta, who was the owner of a magical girdle, given to her by the god of war Ares.

PENTHESILEA was an Amazonian queen in Greek Mythology, who was the daughter of Ares and Otrera and the sister of Hippolyta, Antiope and Melanippe.

She assisted Troy in the Trojan War, where she was killed by Achilles.

The arrival of Penthesilea to Troy is described in the five book epic Aethiopis which was part of the “Cycle of Troy” on the Trojan War. It was published in the 8th Century BC and is attributed to Arctinus of Miletus. Although the Aethiopis has been lost, the epic cycle had been adapted and recycled during different periods of the classical age. In the Aethiopis, Penthesilea is a Thracian woman warrior. An Amazon and daughter of Ares, who comes to help the Trojans. She arrives with twelve other Amazon warriors. After a day of distinguishing herself on the battlefield, Penthesilea confronts Achilles, who kills her.

There were no men allowed to live together with the Amazons. However, in order to continue their race, once a year, the Amazons would visit a nearby tribe called Gargareans. After having sexual intercourse with them, the Amazons would return home; they would keep all baby girls that were born, but the male babies were either killed, sent to their fathers, or left in a forest to die of exposure to the elements.

The Amazons appeared in various Greek myths. In one of them, they attacked the region of Lycia, but were fended off by Bellerophon. They later attacked Phrygia, but were also defeated by the defending army, led by a young Priam, who later became the king of Troy.

According to Homer, the Trojan king Priam had fought the Amazons in his youth on the Sangarius river in Phrygia, some 350 miles east of Troy. Later writers of antiquity located Amazons geographically in Anatolia and started an epic tradition where Greek heroes, such as Heracles and Theseus, fought an Amazon warrior of distinction.

Courageous and fiercely independent, the Amazons, commanded by their queen, regularly undertook extensive military expeditions into the far corners of the world, from Scythia to Thrace, Asia Minor and the Aegean Islands, reaching as far as Arabia and Egypt. Besides military raids, the Amazons are also associated with the foundation of temples and the establishment of numerous ancient cities, such as Ephesos, Cyme, Smyrna, Sinope, Myrina, Magnesia , and Pygela.

Archaeological discoveries of burial sites of female warriors, in the Eurasian Steppes suggest that the horse cultures of Scythian, Sarmation, and Hittites likely inspired the Amazon myth.
In 2019, a grave with multiple generations of female Scythian warriors, armed and in golden headdresses, was found near Russia’s Voronezh.

Scale: 1/30
Material: Pewter alloy and synthetic fibers
Released Date: December 2022