244 THE HORSES OF PREHISTORIC [CH. 



Here the Greeks throve until they were deported to Memphis^ 

 by Amasis (about B.C. 570 — 565). The Greek pottery found 

 on the site, and which seems not to have been imported but 

 made on the spot, must fall between B.C. 664 and B.C. 570. 

 Various fragments of pottery show beautiful dark horses ridden 

 by both men and women. On three fragments are represented 

 nude women on horseback, one of which is here shown (Fig. 72)"'', 

 The woman is painted white except her hair, her horse is dark, 

 her dog painted white runs beside her; behind flies an eagle, 

 whilst in front of the horse is a bearded man painted all in 

 black^. Other fragments from Daphnae^ also show men on horse- 

 back, rider and steed alike painted black. A glance at the 

 figure will make it clear that the bearded man is neither an 

 Egyptian nor an Oriental ; it is also certain that whilst women 

 in both Asia Minor and Egypt were always well draped, so too 

 in neither region did women ever ride on horseback. We 

 have likewise seen that the Egyptian men practically are 

 never seen on horseback. It seems clear then that the 

 naked bearded barbarian men and the Amazons^ riding on 



1 Herod, ii. 154. 



- Petrie, op. cit. (described by Dr A. S. Murray), PL xxix. fig. 4; Antike 

 Denkmdler, ii. 21, 2 (from which my figure is reproduced). The no. in Brit. 

 Mus. is B 116 h. The other two similar fragments are in tlie same case. 



^ The fact that the woman on horseback is painted white, whilst the man is 

 painted dark is not a mark of any difference of race but simply of sex. After 

 the transition from the archaic vases with figures in black painted on white 

 ground to those with black figures painted on the red clay of the vase, white was 

 used to indicate the bare skin of women. As the Daphnae vases are early repre- 

 sentatives of the new technique, it is not improbable that the Greek painters 

 borrowed the idea from the Egyptians, who had long practised it. For example 

 in the beautiful "Book of the Dead" known as the papyrus of Ani in the British 

 Museum, Ani himself is always represented with a dark face, whilst his wife's 

 skin is always painted white, i. e. the man was sunburnt, the woman lived in the 

 shade ; in Plato's words the one was rikiwfievos, the other e(TKiaTpo(pT]Kvia. 



As the men seen on vases or other Daphnae fragments are painted black we 

 may be certain that the white nude figures are women and not men or boys. 



* Petrie, op. cit. PL xxxi. figs. 13, 14. 



5 The Greeks held that there were Amazons in Libya as well as in the 

 region round the Black Sea. As the Sarmatian women who hunted on horse- 

 back with their husbands gave rise to the myth of the eastern Amazons, so the 

 fable of the Amazons of Libya arose from the horse-riding Libyan women (cf. 

 Eidgeway, Early Age of Greece, VoL i. pp. 651-2). 



