You wonder what these two have in common, so you ask the shop keeper. It is a quiet moment, so he sits you down and makes you a cup of tea, and tells you his story.

His ancestors are of the family of those who were close to Alexander the Great. He leans forward and as if in telling a secret, he talks to you of the most amazing story of his life. He must tell his story to one who will understand.

You agree on your understanding and discretion. He tells you he recently met the most amazing relative a man could ever have imagined. He explains that his beautiful young distant cousin is visiting from thousands of miles to the east. She has been given evidence by a swab of her mouth that her greatest grandmother came from this eastern bastion of western Europe.

She is curious about this civilization that brought her ancient relative from here. This young woman lives to the east, in the middle of great Asia. She is golden, and has the eyes of a Mongol, but her eyes are blue and she has blond streak in her hair. A medical team up from Athens took a tongue swab from her, my new friend said: her blood, or DNA they called it, and mine match, on our mother's side.

Thus, again the ancient east meets the ancient west. His cousin from the east in central Asia came to visit his village, and, she hoped, find unknown relatives. He, as did she, can marvel at the idea that she is the serene renewal of a long unproven legend of ancient Greek Amazon women warriors. These really are two distant cousins who look so different.

Yet they both display proof that their greatest grandmothers survived and thrived. The Amazons did not prevail with a victory over the fleet of Persia that battle, and were forced to flee for their lives.

So we marvel while our modern descendant of female warrior blood and her Greek cousin give a shy smile to each other. We should remember that from this small corner of south east Europe while peoples to the north and west still were coming out of caves and down from the trees.

These first civilized peoples of Europe lived in Greek columned mansions of far superior buildings and elegance than they had seen, outside of ancient Egypt.

Yet Greece brought ideals of democracy that permeate western Asia to this day. The name of Alexander is spoken with respect as his short reign was honest and beneficial to most. Many men through to the Indus River are named Alexander, or for his wife from Persia, Roxanne.

The saying it is all Greek to me may have come as so many languages and cultures adapted to Greek ideals over such a vast area, that any new law was all in Greek to them. There is that feeling for us from the west that here is where it all began.

When the Amazon women were granted their own ship, to be entirely operated by Greek Amazons, it was a great honor. They were treated royally before leaving to defend Athens, once more, from mighty Persia.

However, it was not to be, and in all records of this era the mighty navy of Persia swept the Amazon ship northwards away from Greece. They were pursued past Greek Byzantium, and to the far eastern shores of the Black Sea. Here, they had to fight their way east, and fade into into history.

It was only recently that Western researchers took a tongue swab from a young girl who lives in a yurt in central Asia. She has blond streaks in her black hair. Her very pretty Mongol face has blue eyes. The scientists featured her on television recently and she was so proud when the swab came back from Germany.

She is of Amazon blood. How proudly she rode the white pony, her mighty white horse like Alexander, around the village circle, all the others cheering her on, her smile so radiant. She, and they, understood that she was a princess from the times of Alexander the Great, whose fabled wife Roxanne came from lands to the south.

And now she has returned over the path of her greatest grandmother, home to her maternal roots. Our new little Roxanne should be treated and welcomed as this wonderful mix of east and west.

The Amazon Warrior Ship was pushed north by the mighty navy of Persia, who then defeated the main Greek Navy but also pursued the Amazon ship to the east coast of the Black Sea. Here, these powerful women, resplendent with jewels and diamonds as well as swords and armor, fought their way east through people still loyal to Persia, and Greek history books tell they passed from history. Until now.