Searching For Jason And The Argonauts | Greek Mythology Documentary | Timeline

This is the no man's land of the world, a place where east meets west, blood feuds, tribal vendettas and mountain wars are a way of life in what is called Transcaucasia. Here these ruined towers have defeated everyone from Alexander the Great to Attila the Hun and Boris Yeltsin. I am David Adams and my work as a photojournalist takes me to the ends of the earth. Right now I am in Georgia, in Shetty, a land that has never been conquered, but it is also a land of legendary riches, the place where the legendary heroes Jason lived. and his Argonauts came in search of the Golden Fleece.

I'm sailing off the coast of Georgia, once a republic in the former Soviet Union, following in the wake of some of the world's first explorers two and a half thousand years ago. A boat trip to this coast was on board Jason and his Argonauts. That lighthouse over there marks the mouth of the River near the waterway they took to enter the land of the legendary Golden Fleece. I'm here to see what's behind that legend and discover what Jason would find if he were alive today my journey begins on the eastern shores of the Black Sea from here I enter the caucuses following the mythical route of the Argonauts until reaching the Caspian Sea of ​​course it was largely imaginary a myth according to the legend, Jason sailed his ship Argo here to answer a challenge.

If he went to a land beyond the ends of the earth and recovered a golden fleece, he would be made king in Greece, so if I follow his example. steps I need my own transport my own version of the Argo and suddenly I saw it it was like nothing I had seen before it was blue it was bright it was Russian but it was for sale it's a Russian bike like you I can see that the Georgian language is not my strong how old, eh, how old how old is ten years old this conversation was going nowhere when suddenly and unexpectedly the girl who will be my guardian angel enters my life.

Can't. I understand what she is saying. How old is the bike? He speaks fluently about zombies. Early age. The mileage condition seems fine, but what about the price? How much do you want? I'm investigating what this allows. She said 2000 doors in money. Yes, yes, does it work? Right now things aren't looking very good the more he tries to breathe life into her old machine, the less interested I am. I haven't started a motorcycle since the days of my old trail bike in the Australian bush and no. One is more surprised than me, but looking at those faces I'm not so sure, maybe they know something I don't know, but I'll take the risk.

Now all I need is a guide and maybe just maybe I found it to find it here. She's like many Georgians, she's familiar with the legend of the Golden Fleece, so that's where Jason the Argonauts would have landed. Yes, they traveled to a river and they sailed to a river. We only took eight AC, but it is impossible now because there are many barriers behind gold. mountains, oh, you mean sanity, yes, he seems to know everything about the legends, he lives even better, she is an ethnologist by training, so my real question is look, she is coming with me, you know I'm busy, but what's wrong if I review?

That's okay, if you ever feel brave. enough to ride on that bud so on my 83 to nipa motorcycle and wearing a russian army helmet we head north, my powers of persuasion will soon work on the open road and this is a lot of grunting on his old bike but It's summer in Georgia and it's hot. The lush, green trees along the path make it look remarkably European. You wouldn't think you were an Asian miner. We soon crossed the River near River and passed the legendary place where the Argonauts are supposed to have arrived about half past two.

A thousand years ago, this is courtesy of the ancient capital of the ancient kingdom of Colchis. Colchis was the name the Greeks gave to this part of the world. The name Georgia later emerged as a corruption of the Arabic Sergi. The tozi has some pretty grand buildings, many of which date back to Soviet times. was but there is one in particular we are looking for a pleasure palace for the use of Russian generals and members of the communist party alike it has been built over a thermal spring the great scottish buspar inside they have a special gift in store for me a strange mixture of The baths and the torturers torment themselves before submerging you, they strap you into a special harness with which to stretch, obviously most Russian generals are about three or four inches shorter than me, there my penis is dug in and the public does not You can stretch me while my limbs are stretching.

Here you get another type of massage that is even more like yoga, since they say that without pain you don't win. For years the Soviet hierarchy came from all over to wallow in these Watertons, but the client most famous always stayed with the man who was the guest. of honor and its inauguration the first to set foot in these waters was the most infamous of the Georgians Joseph Stalin was the monster who in the 1930s and 40s imprisoned himself and murdered millions of people who knows what was said and decided right here with Una One of the things his generals and ministers would not have discussed were Stalin's bodily defects.

He had a withered arm and two of his toes were supposedly fused together and while the rich and powerful resold the poor to settle for the river. river that was becoming narrower and less navigable for ships like the legendary Argo Tomorrow I will follow in Jason's footsteps to the place where he obtained the Golden Fleece, but there may be more to this myth than first appears, courtesy of the second from Georgia. largest city and according to the legend of Jason and the Argonauts it was by courtesy that they found the golden fleece my journey has brought me from the Black Sea to the deepest part of the Georgian Transcaucasia I am about to head to the province of spher nettie in The Caucasus follows Jason's legendary trail, so the story goes that Neighbor T hid the golden fleece somewhere here in an enchanted Glade, but before Jason could take it, he had to face two challenges: the first was defeating two fire-breathing balls and then taking advantage of them. to a plow and the second was that he had to defeat the Great Serpent that was guarding the fleece.

Jason fulfilled both challenges and as a reward he not only got the meat but also the king's daughter, Princess Medea, in marriage. That's what the myth says and something. It is a fact to discover that I had entered dangerous territory upstream and, as if to make the point clear, just at the end of the road there is a checkpoint. United Nations troops keep a territorial dispute under control. It is part of a long-running dispute between Russia and Georgia. while the troops are here as United Nations peacekeepers, they are not impartial, they are Russian for centuries, the Transcaucasian tribes have been at war with each other and we are going to visit one of them right now and Fornetti permanent of the warriors of the cerebus parent farms.

The children are George, infinite, small earthly ethnic groups, they live in the high mountains for centuries, no one knows exactly when they regain their sanity and why, the further we go, the more signs of danger there are. We came across a policeman who was guarding the road against bandits just a week ago. Travel was hijacked on this road, but there are other reasons why people suffer in the caucuses, so what are these on the side of the road? I've been seeing them all the time, so they're just shrines to people who died, sometimes I drink. and when they drank, he wasn't the main driver for people to run off the road and get killed.

Now I have seen many roadside shrines, but this one has a particular Georgian edition, it is vodka, vodka for people who were not family and friends. They cross, they drink to their memory so we can drink to you, yes, why not, and you make a toast usually, they say a little about God to bless their souls, so what if people stop at all these different shrines and they drink and drink and drink and then they go off the road yes of course in Georgia alcohol is both a way of life and a cause of death so now we the living will toast the dead okay okay Okay, so we don't know who we're drinking from. to remember, oh, I don't have anyone who can get used to this.

I think it's very dangerous. Can you drive this fake taxi now? But maybe not, after three or four more, we are climbing into the mountains and some of them are over 18,000 feet high. Finally we arrive here in the Georgian province of Fornetti where the calves have lived in isolation for over 2,000 years. Babies are famous for dancing first the girls while singing they slide on the ground like princesses in a medieval fairy tale story, the men also wear medieval costumes and have attitudes that match theirs, it is a tradition of honoring chivalry and knights with armor until recently, some of them still wore chain mail, this reputation dates back a long time, more than 2000 years ago, the Greek geographer Strabo.

Where did their warrior customs come from, but did much of their fighting take place among themselves? Panetti is a land of vendetta and revenge. All the faces are incredible. Why is everything fenced in everywhere the family lives? Why are they kept segregated because of vendettas? Really if. It was the tradition part of the Cincinnati light. Looking at their graves you see that many of them died so young and if only for a more worthy cause, problems arise when you are so isolated from the outside world, petty disputes can come to light. hand in hand, then what is the reason for the vendetta?

Sometimes it's a woman or a piece of property, sometimes it's something very simple like the pickaxe and one of the vendettas started in 1950 when he crossed the neighbor's property line and how long did that last for each continuous teal mmm. killed a guy from another family last year, sometimes it's like Sicily over the centuries the government was in the fights, it had a surprising effect on the horizon, rival peasant families built hundreds of towers, a kind of Manhattan was more disorderly, where they could retreat if the vendetta came out of there. On the other hand, people lived in these all the time, not all the time, just sometimes, when they had problems with neighboring families or with other Caucasian tribes, so they stayed here from the beginning, there was someone on duty as a guard after the first line of defense. head to the food storage area imagine trying to transport goats sheep and bags of grain up here this fortress is over a thousand years old climb the ladder and from here you could avoid a siege so they would have plugged the holes for this yeah .

Higher up again we reached the family area, yes, but the most important part of it all was right at the top of the tower, so this is where they spent most of their time. Yes, most of the time it was more comfortable to stay here and watch. to see who's coming there's a lot of light and breeze it's nice it's nice so I guess you'd say this is the business side of these towers they are very well built this wall over this portal actually prevents things like arrows from entering but you can drop anything you want through the bottom, so the boiling oil poop arrows even later shooting through them and very little could come out, you sealed all the levels and for weeks you could hold out here with enough food that you probably wouldn't see . the vendetta but it probably could have lasted its worst moments but the great geographer Strabo riding in the first century BC.

The Legend of Jason Rivers run rich in gold. This is one of the great hydrographic basins in the world. Here the rivers in the Caucasus Mountains flow north towards Europe or south towards Asia Minor for centuries. In the Georgian Transcaucasia they have been prospecting for gold in these rivers and streams. I am leaving the phonetic Georgian border provinces and will soon head east along the Caucasus, but first I want to discover the truth behind an ancient Greek myth: The village of Leli is high in the Caucasus Mountains. Eeeeyah brings me here because he thinks it's the best place to find a traditional gold miner in Fornetti.

This is a gold prospecting town. 4,000 tears, maybe more. Nobody knows exactly what is there. There is some connection to Jason Gordon. Yes. All the traditions and escapes from painting are still useless. I don't get many visitors here but Lilly is a small town, everyone knows each other and we are looking for a man named Gear Gear, he is a local shepherd but he comes from a long line of gold diggers and spends much of his free time washing the nearby rivers. He knows this river well and it still produces gold, as he demonstrates with a quick flick of the pan from it, but I'll look at the traditional method, the old way they used to pluck. because the gold at first looks like an ordinary sluice, but at the bottom there is a sheepskin or fleece, so if he places thesluice in a fast-moving stream of water and shovel into its mud, in theory the lighter gravel should be swept over it in a way.

While the heavier gold sinks and gets trapped in the fleece, there is certainly gold in these rivers and some people know where to find it, but the gears are in no hurry to tell us where it is, we will give that rich man quickly do it with this method or at least with a lock of this size he could equip his father, his grandfather always did this way and have earned enough to make a living, it stands to reason that they have been doing that for generations, perhaps since the time of Jason, who knows who might have actually had a golden place, but this was just the beginning of the Jason's legendary journey.

He now had to recover his golden fleece to claim his throne, but according to one version of the myth, the Argonauts did not go west. direct route back to Greece they went east towards the Caspian Sea and east is where I will go too, of course the myth makers had no idea about the topography, they didn't realize that Transcaucasia was a land of mountains and rivers that flowed from North to South rather than East and West, but myth makers and never let facts get in the way of a good story, we are now entering Shetty province in one of the most remote regions of the caucuses to get there you have to go on horseback, but they only stay for a few of us and then go down yes, in winter this is completely covered in snow yes, that high snowing later once again I am surrounded by transcaucasian skyscrapers all these towers are from 15th century but these towers were built for a very different reason their signal towers to give advance warning of enemy raiders, the Chechens, the Chechen border is just above reach from here the last time these towers were used in a conflict was in 1928.

He will take me to meet a friend who lives with his family in a remote place. Valley in the summer months levin and his father raise sheep and goats we help take them to higher ground the lemon you are always right without a seven you listen to some luggage and she goes too far in this case we take seven in community he travels without shadow, he looks like an American Indian, yes, it's like American television, in Missouri, like many who live here. Levin is a brilliant rider for Tusheti. Good horsemanship has been a matter of device and death for centuries.

The Shetty warriors have been chasing the Chechens away from their villagers and herds now putting their hard journey to more peaceful use. In a couple of days there is a drag race one of the wildest in the world it is time for a celebration in the Levin family house everyone is making traditional Shetty dumplings called / wicked there is a dinner tonight and we are invited to any Gorge and to dinner, it pays to have a good head for alcohol, the toasts are thick and fast, we toast welcome and then everyone talks about the horses, tell me, tell me about the horse and, according to certain things, you are fantastic.

Riders, why are you such good horse riders? Ultra shaytans, but they also used them in war. Kenny says that the most important thing in two shitty lives was the horses also during the fights, then it's more toast that we are drinking the good Georgian wine. There is no escape, every drink must be consumed to the bottom and everyone is expected to maintain control of their faculties because no Georgian party is complete without dancing. The Georgian dance seems to be led by the men, then it's the woman's turn and I learned something more about you are a beautiful dancer the next day Levin wants to show us a rare and slightly grotesque piece from Tusheti in history not far from here there are the quarantine vaults where people came the bubonic plague or the Black Death has cried for the valleys is really a do- DIY cemetery, there are no gravediggers, there are no gravediggers, probably not even the last rites of the church, All you had to do was come here, crawl into your hole and die, so people came here to die when they had the plague, yeah, they isolated themselves, right? you know how old this body is this person here this person they say about three centuries three centuries of each family their bosses are all scared like six yeah so people would come and bring them food you know sometimes they bring but if it was really liver diseases we assure that they will not work well in this case they did it Frank sometimes some mothers came with cribs with babies they knew that if they were sick from plague death has been a constant reality in the caucuses barba jutsu vendetta's Chechnya caused the bubonic plague and while We hear songs of sadness, the fires at the top of the towers burn this time not as a warning of enemy attacks but to summon the best horseman in the land.

Tomorrow's big race is truly death or glory. terrain and I intend to participate once a year in the Republic of Georgia, descend from near and far to this remote valley high above the caucuses. This is the race of the wild mountain riders of Tusheti and is said to be one of the toughest races. in the world as I cross the caucuses in the footsteps of Jason and the Argonauts I head towards Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea but for the moment I have a race to run in an old pagan festival they kill a ram and mount its head in a shrine is this the that symbolizes the spirits of the valley.

It's only 8 in the morning and I'm already starting to wonder what spirits are being summoned. The leaven of the valley makes its own offering is a favorite and waits for the spirits to watch. kindly just to make doubly sure that you light candles under the RAM's watchful eye. It's now 11 o'clock and the vodka spirits are really flying, although it has no effect on anyone's balance. Going down seems like a bigger challenge than getting up. and another glass of vodkas waiting downstairs here they serve bulk vodka in a curious link with Jason the prize is a fleece we head to the start line to the valley the saddles are optional and thank goodness I opted for the no saddle it rains ideal The conditions in this free five mile game are the wildest horse races, soon the rain and Gretel take their toll.

A rider falls a short distance from the line. Another falls almost on the line. If there is a line. The race just seems to end. disappear into the chaos where spectators and horses meet sometimes quite violently and who won well that's a matter of debate and probably this father is still sure that his sons won maybe he did whatever the staff about which legends are made as for me even with a Saddle I just wasn't at the nice Stonewall that ran last summer, was I there? Yes, Tyrod pulled out the dagger from behind the horse. Nick wouldn't say it's not the same.

He would have done better if he hadn't been dragged across the floor. I think five miles across that kind of country jester, whether he came, these guys are absolutely brilliant riders with the rain pouring and the wine flowing, it's a long day of drinking, dancing and horse stories and, As night approaches, they begin the long journey home. No doubt the nurse is hungover the whole way, unfortunately it's time to go. eeehh must return to her work in the city and I must continue my journey east following Jason's trail. Our route takes us through the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, where he lives, with his castles and boulevards. and Orthodox churches have been the capital of Georgia for 1,400 years, but it is a city with a turbulent history and nostalgia summons me to a place I was before Parliament, while a young journalist got my first scoop.

This is not my first time in Georgia. Ten years ago I was here at the time of one of the most important events in Georgia's modern history, when the new president Ziad Kamsa Cordia declared independence from the crumbling Soviet empire, but the euphoria of independence was short-lived, only eight Months later, Georgia found itself in trouble. In the Civil War, eight years later, Georgia may be the poorest, but at least it has had some stability and independence. Now I leave Georgia and head east towards the Caspian Sea. Iya agrees to come see me off on one condition: she drives, we reach the border with Azerbaijan. and now it is time to say goodbye to my companion and guide, the visitor Iya will return to Tbilisi in her normal life.

Well, I headed east and continued with my traffic life. I stopped there first, we stayed near the notifier, okay, thank you, thank you very much. very much eh, it's been fantastic, have a good trip, then I'll call you from Baku, okay, thank you, bye, unfortunately we said goodbye, but my trip must continue now. I am traveling one of the oldest roads in the world, the Silk Road, and I. I am about to open the final chapter, my search for Jason and the Argonauts, sallallahu alayhi wa allahu, allah five times a day this month prepares to deliver the traditional and islamic call to prayer, is amazed in the azerbaijani city of shechem and when the faithful listen it is called without the aid of loudspeakers or any kind of electronic aid, this is the Asia Minor end of Transcaucasia, where the contrast between Christian Georgia and Islamic Azerbaijan could not be more stark.

I am now on the final leg of my journey from the Black Sea to the Caspian. Sea while I followed the spirit of Jason and the Argonauts once in Azerbaijan it is not long before the green of Georgia gives way to an arid landscape that myth about the Argonauts sailing the rivers is wearing thin I don't see rivers and there are very few water now i have heard of a mysterious mauler who lives like a hermit we are supposed to give comfort to travelers so i am coming language nationality faith none of that seems to be a problem i am a traveler and i have come it is very far and often receives visits from non-Muslims and I wonder: give me a prayer for my travels.

I don't know if you understand a word I'm saying, but I received my blessing and your message is simple. It doesn't matter what religion you are, the most important thing is to have a God and have faith, if you carry God in your heart. Amen, these are familiar words and are common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam and it means simply so be it. and as if to rub it off, I receive a series of blows on my back with a stone, then a stream of water and a small gift stone wrapped in plastic. My good luck, Joe.

Now I'm heading down the road to Baku and along the way. Literally, because the closer I get to the Caspian Sea, the lower the sea level I go. The Caspian is 90 feet below sea level, that is, 27 meters, and on its shores, Baku, the oil-rich capital of Azerbaijan, this air has been known for more than a thousand years. For its oil, like Baku oil for cloth, lamp oil, embalming oil, and anointing oil were traded along the Silk Road, he said the oil that anointed Jesus Christ may have come from here. The Azerbaijani is similar in some ways to the Iranian, but walking through Baku.

Narrowness you would never know if Iran is fundamental as mullahs sorbus would be outraged and it is not just that the West comes to the business of Islam and the Billy fact that I write their hips nuts and sharp now they dance for the shukaku and it is the oil that brings Here they say that Behind every oil platform hides a mafia syndicate, but the oil platforms hide something even more cruel than the mafia, huge and deadly vipers. A bite from one of these can deliver a lethal dose of poison, but there is value in the poison here.

Viper venom. It is used to make medicines for heart diseases, it is also used as a coagulant for surgical operations and it is very difficult to see. These snake catchers have had their fair share of snake bites and have been collecting snakes for many years to catch them. They have invented special tools a long one to hold the head of the viper and forceps to grab it from a safe distance and then into the bag with it after a viper bite you probably have eight hours there is no way I am going near one of these In the laboratory they milk them for poison, if ever there was an occupation that requires a firm hand, it is this one gram of snake venom that sells for 200 US dollars, making it more even than gold.

I seem to remember something about Jason fighting snakes, but to say it. The truth is that I had almost given up on the myth of Jason until I visited the rocks of Gore Bastogne. Everything around me is evidence of human habitation 10,000 years ago. There are rock carvings everywhere. Suddenly I see an ancient sheep. Li even more intriguing. A ship could have been the inspiration behind the myth, maybe Jason actually came this way, so I'm on the trail of him again. I want to set up my own farm to where the myth makers say Jason and his Ivan suddenly want to sail, the myth that inspires me again.

So if Jason were alive today, where would he have gone? What kind of person would he have been? He probably would have been an oil billionaire. It's a gold bomb from beneath the black gold of the Caspian, the oil that runs the world's economies and still fuels the flames.of faith, but the truth is. never as romantic as the myth and behind the myth of

jason

and the

argonauts

there was probably a true story a story about a voyage of discovery a story about a group of brave men who risked war to travel to the ends of the earth and They came back to tell the story