Legend of the Golden Fleece based on fact?

The ancient Greek legend of Jason and his Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece may have been based on a real expedition to an ancient kingdom on the Black Sea.

'Jason takes the Fleece'. Detail from Athenian red-figure clay vase, about 470-460 BC. 
[Credit: © Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Geologists have uncovered evidence that a mountainous area of Svaneti in what is now northwest Georgia was the country ‘rich of gold’ described in the legend.

They claim that villagers that were part of the wealthy Kingdom of Colchis, which existed from the sixth to the first centuries BC, used sheepskin to capture gold from mountain streams in the area.

The fleece was used to line the bottom of the sandy stream beds, trapping any tiny grains of gold that built up there. The technique is a variation on panning used elsewhere in the world.

This, they say, would have lead to sheepskins that were imprinted with flakes of gold and could have given rise to stories of a golden fleece.

Historic artifacts, including a bronze sculpture of a bird with a ram's head, that were found in the villages of Svaneti also lend support that the kingdom was the source of the myth.

Among artifacts found in villages of Svaneti, northwest Georgia was a bronze 
sculpture of a bird with a ram's head that researchers say lends support that the myth
 of the golden fleece originated in the area [Credit: Dr Avtandil Okrostsvaridze/
Quaternary International]

Dr Avtandil Okrostsvaridze, a geologist from the institute of earth sciences at the Ilia State University, Georgia, said the story of Jason and his Argonauts quest to find the Golden Fleece may have been a real event to learn about the sheepskin gold mining technique.

He said: ‘The phenomena of the “Golden Fleece”, according to our research, is connected with the sheepskin technique of recovering placer gold (gold that has built up in sand deposits).

‘The end result of this technique of gold recovery river gravels was a gold imprinted sheepskin, giving rise to the romantic and unidentified phenomena of the “Golden Fleece” in the civilized world.

‘We think, from our investigations, that the bedrock and placer gold contents of this region give grounds to believe that there was enough gold in this region to describe Svaneti as “the country rich of this noble metal”.

The Kingdom of Colchis was a wealthy area in what is now modern Georgia where 
according to Greek mythology King Aeëtes hung the Golden Fleece until it was seized 
by Jason and the Argonauts [Credit: Dr Avtandil Okrostsvaridze/
Quaternary International]

‘We share the viewpoint of the Roman historian Apian Alexandrine and suppose that the myth about expedition of Argonauts in quest of the “Golden Fleece” to the Colchis Kingdom was a real event and that the main purpose of this mission was to obtain gold and sheepskin technique of gold mining.’

Dr Okrostsvaridze and colleagues from the Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University in Georgia, conducted a widespread survey of gold deposits in the Svaneti region.

They report in the journal Quaternary International that they used remote sensing and analysed more than 1,000 rock and gravel samples to assess the gold content in the area.

They found that placer gold, where nuggets and flakes sink to the bottom of a stream bed, were extensively exposed throughout the time of the Kingdom of Colchis.

According to Greek mythology Jason and the Argonauts sailed in their ship the Argo 
from Greece to the Kingdom of Colchis in search of the Golden Fleece as part of 
a quest to help Jason win the throne of Iolcus. Here Athena helps build the Argo, 
Roman moulded terracotta plaque, first century AD [Credit: WikiCommons]

Although the Kingdom of Colchis was named in the legend of Jason and his Argonauts as the place where they stole the Golden Fleece, the exact location has always been disputed.

Some ancient sources, and modern academics, have said it could have belonged to the Vani people of Colchis, whose territory was in the middle of the kingdom, but others have predicted it was the Svans who lived in the mountainous north.

They used remote sensing and analysed more than 1,000 rock and gravel samples to assess the gold content in the area.

They found that placer gold, where nuggets and flakes sink to the bottom of a stream bed, were extensively exposed throughout the time of the Kingdom of Colchis.

Gold grains washed from the gravel stream bed of the River Quani in Svaneti. Streams 
in the area are still panned by locals for gold, some of whom still use traditional 
methods that include sheepskin [Credit: Dr Avtandil Okrostsvaridze/
Quaternary International]

Although the Kingdom of Colchis was named in the legend of Jason and his Argonauts as the place where they stole the Golden Fleece, the exact location has always been disputed.

Some ancient sources, and modern academics, have said it could have belonged to the Vani people of Colchis, whose territory was in the middle of the kingdom, but others have predicted it was the Svans who lived in the mountainous north.

Dr Okrostsvaridze, however, points to golden artifacts found in the villages around Svaneti as evidence that they had sophisticated mining and meteorological skills.

These include a unique golden lion sculpture that has been dated back to the second millennium BC.

A unique golden lion sculpture from the beginning of the second millennium BC is thought
 to show the sophisticated skill at obtaining and casting metal around the time when the 
Golden Fleece myth began [Credit: Dr Avtandil Okrostsvaridze/
Quaternary International]

He said: 'This shows that gold mining and its artistic processing was at a very high level, very early in the history of the old Georgian kingdoms.

'Our work shows that the gold content in the rivers sands of this region are sufficiently large to give grounds for the creation of legends.'

Geological surveys by Dr Okrostsvaridze and his team reveal that gold deposits in many areas that were historically mined have been replenished as streams have continued to wash them down the mountainsides.

Indeed, he said that some locals still use traditional techniques to obtain gold from the rivers in the area and it may even be possible for modern day Argonauts to find a golden fleece of their own today.

He said: ‘Our work has confirmed that Svaneti is a region, uniquely, where the locals still wash gold from alluvial placers through modern domestic, wooden vessels or pans with holes in the bottom and unto a sheepskin or fleece which collects the fine particulate gold.’

Author: Richard Gray | Source: Daily Mail [November 29, 2014]