Prehistoric artistic image of warrior woman found on vase

An image showing an Amazon, mythical female warrior, on horseback in a battle against a male warrior has emerged in a vase painting kept at the University of Mississippi Museum in the US, say media reports.

The image of the horsewoman twirling a lasso was found on a box that was believed to be used for cosmetics, jewellery, or ointments.

"It is the only ancient artistic image of an Amazon using a lariat in battle," Adrienne Mayor, research scholar at Stanford University was quoted as saying by Discovery News.

Created between 480 and 450 BC in Athens, the suspenseful scene of a Greek male about to be lassoed by a powerful foreign warrior woman was exotic and also subversive, the researcher said.

Mayor first noticed the vase during research for her 2014 book 'The Amazons: Lives and Legends of Warrior Women across the Ancient World'.

The image portrays the Amazon in dynamic action just before roping her victim. She looks back over her shoulder at the lasso she is swinging while the Greek man crouches under his shield with a spear, the report said.

"The images on the box suggest that women enjoyed scenes of Amazons getting the best of male Greek warriors," Mayor said.