2023/160: The Jason Voyage — Tim Severin

2023/160: The Jason Voyage — Tim Severin

...here in Georgia, and at a higher level in Moscow, enormous efforts had been made to prepare for our visit - months and months of planning had been made and checked, resources delegated, schedules dovetailed, oarsmen selected and prepared, Tovarisch put on standby, an entire apparatus set in motion. All for a small open boat manned by a handful of volunteers, bobbing along at a snail's pace towards Soviet Georgia. [loc. 3489]

In 1985, Tim Severin attempted to prove the story of Jason and the Argonauts -- at least the part about the sea journey from northern Greece, through the Bosphorus and across the Black Sea to Colchis -- by ordering the construction of a reproduction Bronze Age galley, recruiting a team of rowers to row it, and making the 1500-mile journey. This is his account of the voyage( Read more... )