Adrienne Mayor

Drunk on Horse Milk: Fermented Koumiss

by AdrienneMayor May 6, 2013

by Adrienne Mayor (Wonder & Marvels contributor) Amazons, those fabled women warriors of the steppes, were working mothers too busy to breastfeed. According to the ancient Greeks, they nourished their infants with mare’s milk. Since Homer, nomadic tribes from the Black Sea to Mongolia were known as “mare-milking Scythians.” That notion was exotic enough, but [...]

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Ancient Amazons as Sailors?

by AdrienneMayor April 6, 2013

by Adrienne Mayor (Wonders and Marvels contributor) The Amazon strides along, dressed in a tunic and leather boots, carrying her crescent shield and trusty battle-axe. At first glance the image on the ancient coin looks like a typical ancient Amazon, those mythical warrior women modeled on nomadic archers of Scythia, the immense territory stretching from [...]

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Flying Snakes in Ancient Egypt?

by AdrienneMayor March 6, 2013

By Adrienne Mayor (Wonders and Marvels contributor) Egyptian tales of flying snakes captured the curiosity of the Greek historian Herodotus (ca 460 BC). These winged drakontes were said to live under frankincense (Boswellia) trees in the Arabian Desert. To gather the incense, the Arabians burned styrax (resin of the Liquidambar tree) because the smoke drove [...]

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Alexander the Great and the Rain of Burning Sand

by AdrienneMayor February 6, 2013

by Adrienne Mayor (Wonder & Marvels contributor) In 332 BC Alexander the Great and his Macedonian army suffered the effects of a fiendish chemical incendiary that caused horrendous casualties. During Alexander’s seven-month siege of the Phoenician city of Tyre (now Lebanon), the Phoenicians realized that they needed a powerful antipersonnel weapon to “conquer such a [...]

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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Sea Monster

by AdrienneMayor January 6, 2013

by Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor) Sea monster sightings have been reported in the Mediterranean since antiquity. Aristotle (fourth century BC) remarked that experienced Greek sailors occasionally encountered unknown sea creatures. The monsters fell into two types: some resembled massive beams of black wood; others were like giant red shields with many fins. A [...]

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12 Days of Books: How to Make a Scorpion Bomb

by AdrienneMayor December 6, 2012

by Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor) Morbid delight, horror, and melancholy—conflicting moods shaped my research into the amazing arsenal of diabolical biological and chemical weapons that were used in antiquity. Greek Fire, Poison Arrows & Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World seems to evoke mixed emotions in readers, too. [...]

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Ancient Amazons’ Massage Oil

by AdrienneMayor November 6, 2012

by Adrienne Mayor (a Wonders & Marvels contributor) The next time you bathe in an icy river of southern Russia, like the Amazons of classical antiquity, be sure to warm up afterwards with the Amazons’ secret massage oil. The women warriors known to the ancient Greeks as Amazons dwelled north of the Black Sea around [...]

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Dread Death by Purple Snake Poison

by AdrienneMayor October 6, 2012

by Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor) One of the most feared poisons in classical antiquity was obtained from the so-called Purple Snake. According to the Roman natural historian Aelian (ca AD 200), this snake from the “hottest regions” of Asia had deep purple body and a head “as white as milk.” It was described [...]

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Beauty Secrets of the Ancient Amazons

by AdrienneMayor September 6, 2012

by Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor) Galloping for miles on tough ponies, hunting, making war, marauding, and plundering, hot and dry in the summer and bitterly cold in the winter —life on the Scythian steppes was dirty, dusty work for nomad men and the women known to the ancient Greeks as Amazons. How did [...]

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Treating Snake Bite in Antiquity

by AdrienneMayor August 6, 2012

By Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor) Pliny the Elder claimed there was an antidote for every snake venom, except cobra. Aelian agreed that the victim of cobra bite was “beyond help.” Some ancient antidotes, such as rue, myrrh, tannin, and curdled milk, were at least harmless; others were dangerous, and still others downright silly, [...]

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Names of Dogs in Ancient Greece

by AdrienneMayor July 6, 2012

Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels Contributor) Imagine you live in ancient Greece. You are about to choose a new puppy. What should you call it? There was a science to choosing and naming a dog in classical antiquity. Which is the finest puppy in a litter? Like moderns, the ancients looked for an adventurous and [...]

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Ancient Flying Saucers

by AdrienneMayor June 6, 2012

By Adrienne Mayor “Ancient Aliens,” the popular sci-fi meme, has yet to produce solid proof that extraterrestrials ever interacted with humans. Yet Unidentified Flying Objects have a surprisingly ancient history. The earliest UFO sightings were reported by Roman historians Livy, Orosius, Seneca, Plutarch, Pliny, and Josephus. The ancient sightings have been classified by a NASA [...]

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Monkeys with Guns

by AdrienneMayor May 6, 2012

By Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor) Armed and dangerous! Not a phrase that leaps to mind to describe monkeys, except in science fiction fantasies. Indeed, to promote the movie “Rise of Planet of the Apes” (2011), 20th-Century Fox created a YouTube video that quickly went viral, showing a chimpanzee terrorizing African soldiers with an [...]

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Who Made the First Fake Fossils?

by AdrienneMayor April 6, 2012

By Adrienne Mayor (Wonders & Marvels contributor) Paleontological hoaxes and fraudulent fossils are assumed to be modern phenomena. The earliest case is generally thought to be in 1725, when phony fossils carved by rivals ruined Johann Beringer’s reputation. The notorious Piltdown Man fraud was perpetrated in 1913. Since the startling discovery of feathered dinosaur remains [...]

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The World’s First Robot: Talos

by AdrienneMayor March 6, 2012

by Adrienne Mayor, Wonders & Marvels contributor Uncanny mechanical humanoids, automatons, robots, and replicants, so popular in modern fiction and film, are usually thought to be inventions of the 17th century (Louis IV commissioned several mechanized figures). But the creation of artificial humans is a very ancient dream—or nightmare. Daedalus, the most ingenious inventor of [...]

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