SOURCE: "What Did the Argonauts Seek in Colchis?," in Hermathena, No. 150, Summer, 1991, pp. 31-41.

Below, Doumas suggests that the purpose behind the voyage of the Argonauts was to obtain the secrets of metallurgy.

As an archaeologist seeking to interpret a myth, I too, like the Argonauts, am sailing in difficult and possibly dangerous waters, but like them I accept the challenge, I have my motives. For, like G. S. Kirk, I believe that myths 'retain elements from a period many generations earlier than their first recording' and that they offer 'a cause or explanation of something in the real world'.¹ Thus I see the tale of the Golden Fleece and the Voyage of the Argonauts as aetiological myths, and here I take issue with Kirk who maintains that they 'do not explain or offer a cause for anything, unless It is my perhaps for the feeling enchantress like...