The real wonder woman ... An Amazon woman warrior shown wielding a lasso on a 2500-year-old jar Source: University of Mississippi Museum and Historic Houses Source: Supplied

Modern twist ... Lassoo-armed Wonder Woman (played by Lynda Carter). Source: Supplied

It’s a 2500-year-old cosmetics container that was tucked away, forgotten, in a small United States museum.

Then a visiting Stanford University researcher spotted it, and recognised its significance.

“It is the only ancient artistic image of an Amazon using a lariat (lasso) in battle,” Adrienne Mayor, an author and research scholar at Stanford University’s departments of classics and history of science, told Discovery News.

The drawing shows a mounted, shod, trouser-wearing warrior woman — with the obligatory exposed left breast — in battle against Greek hoplite soldiers. She’s poised to lasso the soldier in front of her, and a battle-axe is in her other hand — ready for the killing blow.

HORRIBLE HISTORY: Yes, truth is stranger — and more horrific — than fiction

Stories of lasso, bow and whip — wielding Amazon warrior women abound in Greek and Roman literature. It’s an idea long-since scavenged for the likes of popular culture’s Wonder Woman, Xena and Game of Thrones Sand Snakes.

Officially, the Ancient Greeks loathed Amazons — and their barbaric trousers. Nevertheless, images of stoic Amazons are often found on women’s perfume jars, cleaning vessels, jewel boxes and personal vases — such as this one.

Perhaps it is a sign of a subversive little rebellion among carefully ‘kept’ Greek women: A sign of tensions within the highly misogynistic households of the era.

“The vase would have held a Greek woman’s intimate make-up or jewellery. The images on the box suggest that women enjoyed scenes of Amazons getting the best of male Greek warriors,” Mayor said.

Warrior princess ... A ancient statue showing an idealised vision of the Amazon warriors, from the Greek perspective. Perhaps that is why she isn’t wearing trousers. Source: Supplied

With a twist ... One of the ‘Sand Snakes’ from the television series Game of Thrones. Source: Supplied

AMAZONS EXPOSED

While the Amazons have been an object of fantasy for millennia, they trump modern interpretations in one key way.

These warrior-women were real.

They wore trousers. They smoked dope. They also boasted heavily tattooed flesh.

But the legends that have since grown up around them have long since obscured much of the tantalising truth.

No, they didn’t cut off their breasts to shoot their bows better.

No, they didn’t mutilate male children.

Nor were they a tribe of lesbian man-haters.

But, yes, they were keen archers.

The truth is there really were bands including warrior-women fighting against the Ancient Greeks — a race that could barely comprehend the idea given the closeted treatment of their own female folk.

Ancient Greek tales place them as coming from the steppes of Eurasia, spanning Romania, Ukraine and Russia through to Mongolia

This bit was true. We’ve found their graves.

Battle of the sexes ... A frieze depicting a clash between Greek soldiers and mounted Amazon warriors. Source: Wikipedia Source: Supplied

SCYTHIAN SCOURGE

We now know they were part of a people we call the Scythians. From their burial mounds we can see their women fought in the same way as the men — on horseback, with bows and arrows.

Many female skeletons have been found buried with bows, quivers, spears, daggers and horses. In fact, such warrior-women make up about one third of the total burials with weapons.

It was the Scythian’s unique method of warfare that offered equal opportunities between the genders.

The horse was fast and strong, enabling the warrior to get out of trouble as fast as they got into it. It also largely put the rider out of reach of the enemy.

The Scythian bow was also an advanced ‘superweapon’ of its day: Smaller and more powerful than any found among their opponents.

It was a fighting style which gave the Scythian fighters an advantage — enabling to repulse Greek and Roman advances for centuries.

With such tools, strength was a minimal issue. Trained women were at no disadvantage on the battlefield.

It was an equality that extended to the home.

They inhaled the fumes of marijuana tossed on campfires and drank fermented mare’s milk as much as the next soldier.

The beast within ... A tattoo found on the ‘Siberian Princess’, a woman buried in the frozen Siberian tundra with six horses — and a container of cannabis. Source: Siberian Times. Source: Supplied

Again, the evidence of this is found in their graves: Virtually every Scythian was buried with a hemp smoke kit, it seems.

The warrior women were also heavily tattooed with fantastical animals and geometric patterns.

Ancient Greek depictions of this practice among the Amazons have been confirmed through the discovery of several well-preserved, frozen bodies — as well as kits of tattooing gear.

A remnant of their heritage may even be seen today among the Kurdish female snipers of the Peshmerga, fighting to keep their settlements safe from the Islamic State.

Ancient body art ... Some of the designs found on the ‘Siberian Princess’s’ preserved skin. Source: Siberian Times Source: Supplied