Abstract
TOMYRIS KHAN IN WESTERN ART
In this article, the subject of the famous female commander Tomyris Han, narrated by Herodotus, in the Western painting art is discussed. The last battle of Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire, was with Massagetae / Saka / Scythian Queen Tomyris Khan and at the end of the war Cyros was defeated, killed on the battlefield and his head separated from his body This event, interpreted as the revenge of the woman, has been one of the figurative art subjects, especially starting from the Renaissance. Depicted by many different artists such as Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Francesco Allegrini (1587-1663), François Ragot (1638-1670), Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), Tomyris Khan has been seen as a symbol of the power of women and justice in Western Art. In the article, works on Tomyris Khan by painters or sculptors will be introduced Herodotus tells that Cyrus the Great, the first king of the Persian Achaemenid Empire, was killed by Queen Tomyris of the Massagetae, a Scythian / Saka ethnic group, in the east of the Caspian Sea around 530 BC, after which she separated his head from his body. Herodotus tells in detail how Tomyris Khan dips Kyros into a blood-filled leather bottle as she swore to do. This story made Tomyris one of the important female characters of the Western art, especially in the Renaissance and afterward, and turned Tomyris into an icon representing "the power of women", in other words, "feminism". Many repetitions of this issue in Renaissance Europe made the woman a symbol of the manifestation of justice in the personality of Tomyris Khan. Although it is still debated in Turkey whether Tomyris Khan actually lived or whether it is a mythological character, the Western World loves and respects Tomyris Khan as a symbol of women's courage and power, and still tries to immortalize her name in different art branches with admiration.
Keywords
Tomyris, iconography, Renaissance, painting art, Kyros, Tomris.