Directed by Liev Schreiber, Secrets of the Dead film explores the myth of the Amazon warrior women. Actor, Davis-Kimball, used DNA assessment to disclose the existence of the legendary women warriors of Greek lore. The fable of a tribe of bloodthirsty blonde women, the Amazons, rumbling across the parched battlefields to the horror of their male adversaries, has lingered for many centuries.
Evidence of their existence has consistently evaded the grips of researchers for many centuries. Fortunately, an American scientist who travelled extensively in quest for truth may solve this ancient mystery now. After excavating a culture of prehistoric warrior women in the Russian Steppes, the actor trailed a lead of artifacts to a marginal village in Mongolia and made significant discovery.
This documentary explores all the excitement and the drama of Davis-Kimball’s expedition. Eventually, after along vain search for evidence of the Amazons’ reality, Davis-Kimball alongside Leonid Yablonsky (Russian anthropologist) disclosed a paramount find of their renowned careers.
A discovery of the 2,300-year-old skeletal remnants of an alleged Amazon warrior buried with weapons comprising a cache of iron arrowheads is the benchmark of this documentary. Other artifacts found include an Egyptian alabaster drinking vessel, gold pieces, and a patina mirror. The Egyptian alabaster vessel showed that the woman must have held an extremely high status. Most probably, she could have been a fighter priestess.
Not only is Davis-Kimball’s excavation of the priestess warrior historic, but also the most recent in a chain of remarkable findings she has made in the steppe area from the beginning of her excavation in 1994. She found a bent arrowhead amid the set of weapons lying adjacent to a female skeleton in one grave, implicating that the woman had died in a battle.
A second female skeleton was buried with one leg bent and the other straight, an attack stance of a fighter. These findings uphold the conviction that a culture of warrior women, the alleged Amazons, roamed the steppes in the first century B.C. and that perhaps this tribe of women had been the motivation for the Amazon myth.
The evidence of warrior women indicates that probably they were unsatisfied with the leadership of their male counterparts. Clearly, there was struggle for power between the two genders during the ancient times. Gender inequality and male chauvinism could possibly have been the impetus for the organization of the tribe of the Amazon. The women were fully organized since they also had their priestess. Clearly, the political leadership of the males was unacceptable to the female members of the community.
This documentary insinuates that Russia was the first nation to initiate gender equality campaign. The women warrior is an obvious proof that what men could do women could also do and this premise could have formed the stronghold for a fight for gender equality rights.
From the documentary, the viewer gets to learn that some struggles for political rights could trace back in the prehistoric times. Thus, political leaders must always try to meet the requirement of all the people, regardless of their gender. Also, in ancient times people travelled long distances for commercial purposes or for wars.
The filming takes the audience through a breath-holding phase when Davis-Kimball and Joachim take samples of the warrior woman to the genetic laboratory at Samara in southern Russia to establish its genetic basis, Up to the present time, there has not been any DNA analysis aimed at determining the reality of the Amazons. However, the findings of Burger determines Davis-Kimball hypothesis that the nomads buried in the steppes are the origin of the myth.
The viewer anticipates the fragile remnants of the warrior woman will yield some useful genetic information; the audience also wonders if it does, what people in the current world could be the Amazon’s descendants; moreover, what implication could that have on them. This scenario gives the documentary more credibility since genetic analyses are accurate scientific techniques of establishing the biological relation of individuals.
Although the documentary emphasized the reality of the Amazon myth, the sites of the excavation are situated far from the geographical locations that held the myth. The women skeletal remains could probably have been that of other women who held an important status in the community. Perhaps the alleged warrior priestess could have been a queen.
The most probable direction the producer would take in the next film is on the search for other archeological sites in Greece or other nearby places, where the Amazon myth was very much alive. In addition, Davis-Kimball should seek to expose the roles of the male counterparts who were socially related to this tribe of warrior women. Moreover, she may also consider exploring the implications it may have on those alleged descendants of the Amazon warriors.
I would recommend the movie for sociology students seeking to understand the impact of gender in the society because the film carries deep insights surrounding gender issues like the genesis of affirmative action among others. The documentary depicts the conflict of two genders, which helps the student appreciate the importance of leveling the grounds for both genders, in matters concerning political, economical, and perhaps religious opportunities.
Works cited
Schreiber, Liev, dir. The Secrets of the Dead. 3BM Television, 2000. Film.