I have always had a fascination for the myth/legends of the Amazon warriors, that also held an equal fascination for the ancient Greeks. They were depicted in writing and illustration to such an extent that it is hard to believe they were imaginary. Modern archaeology has proved that such female warriors did exist on the vast steppes north of the Black Sea, amongst the Sythians or their forerunners. Read it up.

I’ve made my own depictions of such warriors (see previous posts) probably not historically correct, but in a style that crosses both legend and myth. This post shows how they have been depicted as German flat tin figures (zinnfiguren, flach figuren)

Some of the figures are named on the base, identifying personalities like Penthesilia and Hyppolyte. An Amazon contingent fought on the Trojan side in Homers account of the Trojan wars. (As with any mention of Amazons by the Greeks they were always defeated, or shown losing, Classical Greek society, although fascinated by the idea of female warriors could not imagine them defeating a male warrior).

Most of the figures I have are from the editor W Hafer, I haven’t discovered who made the other few I have without his logo on them. There are more I haven’t found yet and I have a few that I haven’t painted. All of these have been painted by myself. The pic on the left and below are closer images of the ones in the group above. All are about 30mm scale.

These figures are getting more difficult to find. I might have to go to one of the bigger German shows to see if I can pick up more of them. I also collect factory painted Keiler flat figures of ancient Egyptian armies, but postage rates of packages from the EU are very high so don’t buy them unless the cost is low enough.

On the left are some Hafer foot figures. As you can see he liked making naked female warriors. I’m sure Amazons or female Sythians or whatever they were did not fight naked, more likely light cavalry or foot, although many Sythians were armoured. Obviously he wanted to cater for all tastes, so he made them naked or lightly dressed; see two different interpretations of the same figures. A few more foot figures below.

Click on any image to make bigger. I also have Hafer Trojan warriors to fight these and will show in a future post.