For a documentary maker who has made a vocation out of separating reality from myths, facts from fiction, Shaun Trevisick is no killjoy sceptic on a campaign to relegate cherished fables to the dustbin of "discredited history".His stepping-beyond-the-myth approach has been applied to grand topics of ancient mythology such as early civilisation in The Greeks; the mysterious Nefertiti, who was the wife of Akhenaten and one-time ruler of ancient Egypt; the Queen of Sheba; and an artefact in Vienna called the Holy Spear, which the young British filmmaker and historian describes as a Shroud of Turin-meets-Excalibur story. His recent historic subjects include the Extraordinary Voyage of Jules Verne and the left-of-centre Henry VIII profile, Eat Like a King, both of which have screened locally. It is his latest project, however, that perhaps comes closest to investigating one of this age's most enduring fables, which is due to re-enter the popular mindset with a new big-budget Hollywood film in production. According to the legend, 3000 years ago a young man named Jason undertook an epic voyage to the furthest corner of the world. He had amazing adventures, crossed unpassable seas and mountains and battled monsters before finally discovering the legendary Golden Fleece.

In The Real Jason and the Argonauts, Trevisick brings the weight of history and archaeology to bear on a wondrous question: did Jason exist, and was his actual journey the first recorded and greatest voyage of discovery of antiquity? Trevisick's quest began when one of the researchers at Atlantic Productions, where he is a staff director, stumbled upon archaeological evidence of early communities in Georgia. Because of the troubles in this post-Soviet Union region, the timber ruins discovered beneath a riverbed could not be further examined.

View: Full Article | Source: The Age