The Abraham Cowley
Text and Image Archive
Amazon en garde?
Soloi, Cilicia, Asia Minor, AR stater (425-400 BC). Obv.: Bare-breasted Amazon kneeling and holding bow l., facing satyr-head symbol behind
Rev.: Grape-cluster with fly, in Greek characters SOLEON
This Greek coin seems to have furnished even a postural model for Etienne Delaune's 1575 allegorical engraving of America as a provocative Amazon; note the satyr-head symbol coyly buried underfoot in Delaune, hinting now at American cannibalism.
Related links:
The American Amazon /
Amazons recruiting /
Young Man and American Wild Women
Venus Ready for Battle / Roman Virtue as Amazon // Elsewhere:
Amazon -- trophy-head -- bust of Vesta or Earth, from Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum (1570)
Marten de Vos' slightly later America, apparently based on Delaune /
Other early allegories of America
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