Legend or fact? Myth or reality? Some thirty-three centuries ago, in the thirteenth century BC, Jason set sail in a galley with a band of Heroes in search of the Golden Fleece. The boat was named Argo, after its builder, and the sailors are known as the Argonauts. But did they exist? And what was the Golden Fleece?
Their journey took them from present-day Greece, across the Aegean Sea, through the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara, through the much feared Bosphorus into the Black Sea, and thence along the entire north coast of Turkey, ending up in the state of Georgia in the Soviet Union. It was there, in ancient Colchis, that Jason found not only the Golden Fleece but also his bride, Medea, after taming the wild bulls, killing the serpent, and planting its teeth in the soil. Or so the legend has it.
Tim Severin, having sailed in a leather boat from Ireland to America to test the legend of St Brendan, and having linked the seven journeys of Sindbad the Sailor into a single mammoth trip from Arabia to China, has now investigated the story of Jason. He had a twenty-oar galley built in the Aegean to the exact specifications of a Bronze Age boat and, with his crew of new Argonauts, made the same perilous 1500-mile journey. The oarsmen were aided by Greek, Turkish and Soviet volunteers as they passed through each country's territorial waters. And they underwent extraordinary hardships on the way.
Not only did they prove that, in spite of the dangers and discomfort, Jason could have made the journey in an oared galley, which many experts considered impossible. Along the route, Tim Severin also investigated many of the adventures that legend attributed to the Argonauts, from the clashing rocks in the Bosphorus to the bulls and the serpent at the end of the voyage. His conclusions, based on hard evidence, will startle the skeptics.
He occupies a unique place as an author who bridges the world of mythology and archaeology. The Jason Voyage will have an irresistible appeal to scholars, to lovers of adventure, travel and mystery, to sailing men who want to know about the ancient techniques of seamanship-in fact, to every reader interested in our cultural heritage.
—from the dust jacket
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