Wounded Amazon (Mattei type)

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Female warriors known as Amazons lived in Anatolia around 2000 BC. They are considered to be the daughters of Ares, god of war, and Harmonia. Pliny the Elder recorded five bronze statues of these female fighters in the Artemision at Ephesus. He attributed their abundance in one location by describing a competition between artists like Polykleitos, Phidias, Kresilas, Kydon, and Phradmon that took place in the 5th century BC. Polykleitos won this artistic competition with his Amazon sculpture type, known as Sciarra. The original version of this work is housed at the Pio-Clementino Museum (Vatican). It was discovered in 1770 and is called Mattei Amazon, after the family that once owned it. The Mattei type is undoubtedly a Phidias sculpture.