Name:	The Amazon Sarcophagus
Picture:
Description:	From Cyprus. Vienna, Kunsthist. Museum. H. 1.7m. In two parts. Part 1, from the left: naked Greek warrior with a crested helmet, a sword in his right hand and a cloak and shield in his left, draws back from an Amazon on horseback. She, and her sisters, wears a hat, sleeved chiton and trousers, and boots. She aims a blow at the Greek. Her horse is covered with an animal pelt, and he rears over the body of a fallen Amazon. A Greek drags a fallen comrade from the field, parrying with his shield as she strikes with a double-axe. A fallen Amazon cowers beneath the hooves of her sister's horse that rears in surprise, his rider seized by a Greek. Part 2, from the left: an Amazon rushes onto the field to support her sister on horseback, who swings a curved short sword at a helpless Greek who has lost his weapons and puts up his arms in defence. On the ground, a fallen Amazon.
Date:	c. 320 B.C
Discussion:	Amazonomachies were sculptural favourites of those people on the margins of Hellenic civilisation. Like centauromachies and gigantomachies, the amazonomachy represented the struggle by the Greeks to civilise the rest of the Aegean and Mediterranean. It was ironic, then, that the colonised 'barbarians' should take such pleasure in erecting monuments that celebrated their own subjugation, making themselves more Greek than the Greeks.