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Remembering Women: Lessons from the Ancient World
Women do have a history of their own.
All we need to do is remember it.
In this illuminating new investigation, Christine Lehnen looks back at our collective memory to explore the myriad ways that women in the past have enjoyed a more egalitarian life.
Due to advances in bioarchaeological methods, scientists have discovered that one out of three women in Ancient Scythia was an active warrior buried with her weapons. Far from being confined to their homes, these women rode out to hunt, travelled to distance places, or used weapons to fend off their enemies. These warriors were no exceptions to the rule, with women enjoying a significantly higher degree of equality than their Greek contemporaries.
Remembering Women argues that there is a historical precedent for a fairer society. From reappraisals of well-known objects such as the earliest human bone calendars from the Stone Age to revelatory findings of innovative bioarcheological methods used on human remains from Ancient Scythia, evidence is accumulating that there were places in the past where all women were allowed to thrive.
Interweaving new findings from archaeology with the stories of her mother and grandmothers, as well as her everyday experiences as a woman living today, Lehnen explores our collective memory of women and argues that it needs to change if we are to create an egalitarian society. Remembering Women follows the traces left in the material, literary, and archaeological record by our foremothers, and their heirlooms, artwork and stories, to take a fresh look at our life in the present.
All we need to do is remember it.
In this illuminating new investigation, Christine Lehnen looks back at our collective memory to explore the myriad ways that women in the past have enjoyed a more egalitarian life.
Due to advances in bioarchaeological methods, scientists have discovered that one out of three women in Ancient Scythia was an active warrior buried with her weapons. Far from being confined to their homes, these women rode out to hunt, travelled to distance places, or used weapons to fend off their enemies. These warriors were no exceptions to the rule, with women enjoying a significantly higher degree of equality than their Greek contemporaries.
Remembering Women argues that there is a historical precedent for a fairer society. From reappraisals of well-known objects such as the earliest human bone calendars from the Stone Age to revelatory findings of innovative bioarcheological methods used on human remains from Ancient Scythia, evidence is accumulating that there were places in the past where all women were allowed to thrive.
Interweaving new findings from archaeology with the stories of her mother and grandmothers, as well as her everyday experiences as a woman living today, Lehnen explores our collective memory of women and argues that it needs to change if we are to create an egalitarian society. Remembering Women follows the traces left in the material, literary, and archaeological record by our foremothers, and their heirlooms, artwork and stories, to take a fresh look at our life in the present.
258 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 19, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 25, 2025
I was very kindly gifted a copy of this extraordinary read by Icon Books. What a truly touching tribute to the mythical Helen Of Troy ( a grossly sexualised and scandalised figure from Grecian times), the discovery of forgotten Scythian warriors from vase inscriptions and a reclamation of women’s history from across the ages. Remarkably women have always been strong, diverse, leaders and doers. The Amazons from Greek mythology are my inspiration.
I love stepping away from the centuries old biblical and patriarchal interpretations of said women and into the light of feminine power. To remember is to reawaken and I have very much felt these stories of the past swirl around in my conscious. I had very little knowledge on the Scythian legends so thank you Christine for the history lesson.
Lehnen writes so well and with the reverence of a daughter tracing the lineage of her foremothers, and the fire of a woman who knows how often history has silenced the feminine. The quiet but resounding truth is that women have always been here: shaping, warring, weaving, healing.
Three thousand years ago there lived Eastern Iranian settlers known as The Scythians to the Greco-Roman world. Warrior women of the steppes buried with bows and blades. In Scythia they built a glittering community and one in three of them it has been revealed, were active warriors who would partake in hunting and ride out on horseback. Even horse bones were found buried with them. That’s right, these women belonging to archaic times had some degree of independence and equality in comparison to their Greek sisters. We even know some of their names: Khasa, Eurayle and Molpadia.
Although Lehnen takes us to a golden age, she never lets the ancient eclipse the personal. No, she stitches in the voices of her own mother and grandmothers, their resilience, their silences, their strength. In doing so, she reveals the act of remembering not just as research, but as resistance. These women deserve our respect and a place in our collective memory.
I love stepping away from the centuries old biblical and patriarchal interpretations of said women and into the light of feminine power. To remember is to reawaken and I have very much felt these stories of the past swirl around in my conscious. I had very little knowledge on the Scythian legends so thank you Christine for the history lesson.
Lehnen writes so well and with the reverence of a daughter tracing the lineage of her foremothers, and the fire of a woman who knows how often history has silenced the feminine. The quiet but resounding truth is that women have always been here: shaping, warring, weaving, healing.
Three thousand years ago there lived Eastern Iranian settlers known as The Scythians to the Greco-Roman world. Warrior women of the steppes buried with bows and blades. In Scythia they built a glittering community and one in three of them it has been revealed, were active warriors who would partake in hunting and ride out on horseback. Even horse bones were found buried with them. That’s right, these women belonging to archaic times had some degree of independence and equality in comparison to their Greek sisters. We even know some of their names: Khasa, Eurayle and Molpadia.
Although Lehnen takes us to a golden age, she never lets the ancient eclipse the personal. No, she stitches in the voices of her own mother and grandmothers, their resilience, their silences, their strength. In doing so, she reveals the act of remembering not just as research, but as resistance. These women deserve our respect and a place in our collective memory.
September 18, 2025
This book is part of a long, and somewhat outdated, feminist tradition of trying to find a golden age of gender equality somewhere in the past. It’s also indebted to what Sophie Smith recently derogatorily dubbed the ‘women’s recovery industry’: works that employ the trope of “forgotten women” lost to “history”, usually ignoring that many women historians have tried hard to seriously study them. While the purported Eurasian feminist utopia is usually either “Old Europe” or Minoan Crete, Lehnen throws the ancient Scythians into the mix (but also talks about Crete and prehistoric Europe, making the book feel a little unorganized).
Unfortunately for Lehnen (who is not a historian), not much is known about ancient Scythian women, especially if you want to move beyond the not very reliable Greek literary sources. Hence the book is full of statements about what Scythian women “may have” done, even in cases that are central to her claims of equality. We know from graves that Scythian women had more equality than usual in the sphere of warfare, but Lehnen’s own account makes it clear that many other Scythian women did not have access to this type of power, and many pages are filled with myths despite the author noting how the women in them were not real. The very personal way the book is written muddled the historical portion, and made it clear that the author has thrown impartiality to the wind in service to the liberal feminist cause, despite criticizing past historians for interpreting the ancient world through their own biases. I found her exaltations of warrior women came dangerously close to glamouring warfare: I was particularly floored by her lamentation of how French people tried to suppress the Dahomey warrior women, when they were the agents of a kingdom built on the slave trade. The numerous errors that litter the book (Hesiod was a 3-2 century B.C poet, Augustine was a Roman emperor, the coverture tradition of wives taking their husbands’ names being traceable to a culture without surnames like ancient Greece, the dubious hypothesis that the Ishango bone is a menstrual calendar) also make it difficult to trust.
However, what I found most objectionable was the author’s treatment of ancient Greek women. These women (usually Athenian women, made to stand in for the entirety of Greece) are frequently used by an author who doesn’t know the difference between St. Augustine and Augustus to bolster her fantasies about girlboss Scythian women, portraying them as having practically no important roles in society outside the home, except one section briefly noting how some women were economically active outside the home. Most examples are mythical women, with a few historical women who anyone who’s read an introductory textbook will have heard of thrown in, and general statements about how women were expected to behave being treated as reality. Not even their important public roles in religion merit comment! For all she talks about how cultural memory forgets women who weren’t villains or victims, Lehnen seemingly can't be bothered to do research on Athenian women because she’s decided they’re only important as victims.
I even feel that her claims don’t do justice to generally sexist Athenian ideology. Thucydides/Pericles said that the best women were the ones never spoken about, but Thucydides marks the beginning of the Peloponnesian war with the name of a highly honored public priestess: philosophers thought that women couldn't reason, but gave them control of their household finances: their texts were androcentric, but on the stage they were capable of empathetically imagining women’s inner lives. The women of ancient Greece– the tenderly missed dead maidens, the slaves whose work gave elite women leisure, the women who sold ribbons in the agora to support their families, and even the 2 out of 3 Scythian women who do not seem to have shared in hunting and war– would not see themselves reflected in this book’s analysis, and that is the worst thing a book on ‘remembering women’ can do.
Unfortunately for Lehnen (who is not a historian), not much is known about ancient Scythian women, especially if you want to move beyond the not very reliable Greek literary sources. Hence the book is full of statements about what Scythian women “may have” done, even in cases that are central to her claims of equality. We know from graves that Scythian women had more equality than usual in the sphere of warfare, but Lehnen’s own account makes it clear that many other Scythian women did not have access to this type of power, and many pages are filled with myths despite the author noting how the women in them were not real. The very personal way the book is written muddled the historical portion, and made it clear that the author has thrown impartiality to the wind in service to the liberal feminist cause, despite criticizing past historians for interpreting the ancient world through their own biases. I found her exaltations of warrior women came dangerously close to glamouring warfare: I was particularly floored by her lamentation of how French people tried to suppress the Dahomey warrior women, when they were the agents of a kingdom built on the slave trade. The numerous errors that litter the book (Hesiod was a 3-2 century B.C poet, Augustine was a Roman emperor, the coverture tradition of wives taking their husbands’ names being traceable to a culture without surnames like ancient Greece, the dubious hypothesis that the Ishango bone is a menstrual calendar) also make it difficult to trust.
However, what I found most objectionable was the author’s treatment of ancient Greek women. These women (usually Athenian women, made to stand in for the entirety of Greece) are frequently used by an author who doesn’t know the difference between St. Augustine and Augustus to bolster her fantasies about girlboss Scythian women, portraying them as having practically no important roles in society outside the home, except one section briefly noting how some women were economically active outside the home. Most examples are mythical women, with a few historical women who anyone who’s read an introductory textbook will have heard of thrown in, and general statements about how women were expected to behave being treated as reality. Not even their important public roles in religion merit comment! For all she talks about how cultural memory forgets women who weren’t villains or victims, Lehnen seemingly can't be bothered to do research on Athenian women because she’s decided they’re only important as victims.
I even feel that her claims don’t do justice to generally sexist Athenian ideology. Thucydides/Pericles said that the best women were the ones never spoken about, but Thucydides marks the beginning of the Peloponnesian war with the name of a highly honored public priestess: philosophers thought that women couldn't reason, but gave them control of their household finances: their texts were androcentric, but on the stage they were capable of empathetically imagining women’s inner lives. The women of ancient Greece– the tenderly missed dead maidens, the slaves whose work gave elite women leisure, the women who sold ribbons in the agora to support their families, and even the 2 out of 3 Scythian women who do not seem to have shared in hunting and war– would not see themselves reflected in this book’s analysis, and that is the worst thing a book on ‘remembering women’ can do.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews