The cemetery at Tekkeköy

Exceptional burials in the homeland of the Amazons

urkish archaeologists excavated - in the early forties of this century - an outstanding burial-ground at Tekkeköy, a little east of Dündartepe in the traditional homeland of the Themiskyreian Amazons. This cemetery, which dates from the Early Metal Age (third millennium B.C.), contained 17 bodies - 13 adults and a separate group of 4 children. Unlike other prehistoric Turkish cemeteries, four of these skeletons were extended on their backs, a position which was, in this period, quite abnormal. The remaining bodies were contracted or flexed, on back or side. All corpses were interred in plain earth.
The skeletons manifest that these people were of tall, long-limbed race.

body extended on its back
contracted skeleton	corpse in flexed position
he discovery of a double burial revealed a big mystery. Two corpses laid side by side in perfect order, extended on their backs. Very enigmatic is the fact that the chests of those dead have been removed. It has been suggested that these corpses have been mutilated. But there is a striking conformity with the Amazons. Many ancient writers related that the Amazons mutilated their right breast, that it might not hinder the use of the bow. This surprising discovery allows the conjecture that at Tekkeköy a burial ritual of chest removal was practised, which was possibly misunderstood by the ancient historians and thus raised the myth that the Amazons mutilated their breast!
mysterious double burial
Grave-goods: here have been found pottery, weapons and jewelry. They discovered daggers, arrow-heads, ear-rings, bracelets, needles and finely polished axes made of antlers. All those finds perfectly fit with the image of the historic Amazons! Pottery was of high quality. On the right picture you see a finely polished thin-walled jar, and on the left there is a very extraordinary fragment of a face-urn.
fragment of a face-urn	a curious jar with a highly polished neck

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