Now these Amazons are nothing more than the priestesses of the Asiatic goddess, whose cult spread from Carchemish along with the advance of the Hittite armies. She was served by a multitude of armed priestesses and eunuch priests; under her name of Ma, for instance, no less than six thousand of them waited on her at Komana in Kappadokia. Certain cities, in fact, like Komana and Ephesos, were dedicated to her service, and a large part of the population accordingly became the armed ministers of the mighty goddess. Generally these were women, as at Ephesos in early days, where they obeyed a high-priestess, who called herself 'the queen-bee.' When Ephesos passed into Greek hands, the goddess worshipped there was identified with the Greek Artemis, and a high-priest took the place of the high-priestess. But the priestess of Artemis still continued to be called 'a bee,' reminding us that Deborah or 'Bee' was the name of one of the greatest of the prophetesses of ancient Israel; and the goddess herself continued to be depicted under the same form as that which had belonged to her in Hittite days. On her head was the so-called mural crown, the Hittite origin of which has now been placed beyond doubt by the sculptures of Boghaz Keui, while her chariot was drawn by lions. It was from the Hittites, too, that Artemis received her sacred animal, the goat.
The 'spear-armed host' of the Amazons, which came from Kappadokia, which conquered Asia Minor, and was so closely connected with the worship of the Ephesian Artemis, can be no other than the priestesses of the Hittite goddess, who danced in her honour armed with the shield and bow. In ancient art the Amazons are represented as clad in the Hittite tunic and brandishing the same double-headed axe that is held in the hands of some of the Hittite deities on the rocks of Boghaz Keui, while the 'spear' lent to them by the Greek poet brings to our recollection the spear held by the warriors of Karabel. We cannot explain the myth of the Amazons except on the supposition that they represented the armed priestesses of the Hittite goddess, and that a tradition of the Hittite empire in Asia Minor has entwined itself around the story of their arrival in the West. The cities they are said to have founded must have been the seats of Hittite rule.