Talk:Golden Fleece

Georgian name in lead

And in French the Golden Fleece is the Toison d'Or. In Italian, Jupiter is now Giove. But why are we being told this? Wetman 02:01, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well, Colchis is in modern Georgia...I guess that's why. Probably still unnecessary. Adam Bishop 02:03, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Since Georgian is only attested from the 4th century AD, it seems unlikely that the Georgian name is relevant to the ancient story. I will remove it. --Macrakis (talk) 13:43, 25 July 2013 (UTC)

User:Giorgi_Balakhadze added back the Georgian name in the lead, with the edit comment "This myth is not only Greek, it's Georgian also. So Georgian name must be included in the article." But the rest of the article says nothing about a Georgian myth, only a myth about Georgia. No doubt the myth is known in Georgia nowadays (as it is in Denmark and Hawaii), but is there any historical evidence of Georgian origins, and in particular, of the Georgian name ოქროს საწმისი? --Macrakis (talk) 16:41, 27 July 2013 (UTC)

Australian petrol station

There used to be an Australian petrol station chain called "Golden Fleece".

Attention needed

This article could be improved by adding additional sections; see Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Structure of the article for more guidelines. A more concise introduction would also be an improvement. Lastly, the article does not cite its sources.
-,-~^R'lyehRising~-,- 05:53, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

I've conformed the article to the style guide and changed the name of the section listing sources from "Literature" to "Sources" to make it clearer. Canon 14:48, 8 January 2006 (UTC)

SPONSORSHIPS:

 Contrary to the movie story of Jason and the Argonauts, the Golden Fleece was never did found.  It is so, because Phrixius whose sister Helen fell off the ram, landed in an island in Asia; whereas, he scrificed the Ram back to its father, Posiedon-the seagod. Think may know the location of the island and it is not Colcous-Georgia.  Do contact this no. 240-667-6879, HRH.  Paduka's (the Eastern King) contact for this search?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.48.89.155 (talk) 00:05, 27 October 2014 (UTC) 

Robert Graves

Is Graves' interpretation based on evidence? Canon 21:34, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Unless someone objects, I'll move the apparently idiosyncratic Graves interpretation to the Sources section. Canon 13:21, 30 April 2006 (UTC)egggdsncxkfnxlkjjhdnxlkj

Since there were no objections, I moved Graves' interpretation to the Sources list since it seems akin to other interpretations listed that do not have much scholarly support. Canon 02:06, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Takin

Anyone know an academic reference for the idea of the Golden Fleece being the skin of a takin (Budorcas taxicolor)? It seems like a very widespread rumour, at least wherever takins are concerned...Koromislo 01:16, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

An oddly literal reading, drawing upon an animal that was unknown in the Aegean or the Caucasus, where the myth circulated. Myth never employs exotic creatures, even to assemble monsters. The uses of fleeces when taking oaths or in other chthonic ritual is taken up by Jane Ellen Harrison, A Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. --Wetman 01:36, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Interpretations

I've restored the interpretations section to represent the prevailing opinion of the archeological community and the chief alternatives. Canon 13:41, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

"Attempts have been made to interpret the Golden Fleece not just as a fanciful object in a myth..." The long-term effects of being told in school, "Silly old Greeks! They just made it all up," remains as a constant subtext in the interpretations of those who suffer from the effects of an indoctrination that teaches Greek mythology as arbitrary, whimsical and "false". The details of Greek mythology were never "fanciful" or selected at random. How can this obtuse slant be corrected? --Wetman 21:23, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The Interpretations section concludes that the fleece likely had very deep meaning to the originators of the story, which is consistent with the prevailing scholarly opinion. The section does not state that the fleece is a fanciful object; rather it is questioning the rationalistic explanations that spring from this attitude. This is consistent with your position. Canon 00:01, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Not at all. What the "Interpretations" section says is that interpretations other than as "a fanciful object" have been "attempts". Then, following a series of hollow reductions to "practical" terms, the section concludes "that all extant interpretations are greatly post facto and in greater or lesser degree rationalizations." That's what the "Interpretations" section says. Since none of this is directly tied to any published discussions— "prevailing scholarly opinion" or whatever— it would properly count as "original research", if it were original and had involved research. "Silly old Greeks! They just made it all up." is the teaching nuns' position, unchallenged at Wikipedia. Any other avenue of examination would be peppered with {{Fact}}, is that not true? --Wetman

The way I read that section is that there have been a number of attempts to replace the "fanciful object" with a "rational explanation," but that scholarly opinion is that the story had deep meaning to its originators (i.e., the fleece was not merely a "fanciful object."). What then follows is an annotated list of sources, starting with the prevailing scholarly opinion and then listing the various rationalistic interpretations. This annotated list is more detailed than simple footnotes would allow. I don't see any original research in the article. Canon 18:48, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

Rightly or wrongly, the popular view in Western society of ancient myths in general is that they are silly fairy stories good only as source material for special effect laden films. I don't agree with that assessment, but that's the situation. The Interpretations section uses this real world situation as a starting point not because it agrees with it but because that's how things are, and any differing opinion it has to be placed in this context. I think you misunderstand the word "attempt" in this context, it's not derogatory but merely descriptive, all historical texts are attempts to establish the truth. If you were to discuss Neville Chamberlain, the starting point would have to be that most people consider him a naive idealistic appeaser selling out to Hitler, even though many historians have since attempted to show he was a shrewd pragmatist buying time for Britain to rearm. It doesn't matter which view you agree with, you have to start out with the view that's most common so that people can get an idea of how society currently perceives someone or something. (anonymous post from User:212.146.46.247)

When it has been improved the article will simply reflect the spectrum of educated views, only some of which attempt to 'rationalize' the golden fleece in various ways; the article does not claim to represent a thousand untutored opinions that may exist far from libraries. The Interpretations section can only be a report on published mainstream interpretations. It cannot be a soapbox for personal essays on "what most people" are alleged to think. --Wetman 08:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Use in deep gold mines

Are there archeological references for the use of fleece in deep gold mines in Colchis prior to the 5th century BC? Canon (talk) 18:21, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I have amended the section to make it clear that their use would have been on washing tables outside an underground mine. We know the Egyptians were underground mining ca 1500 BC according to Strabo, but earlier evidence is hard to find, but entirely possible. The previous section seemed to imply that they simply dipped fleeces in a stream, which is very unlikely. It is necessary to divert streams which are gold-bearing to reach the gold near the bedrock. Alluvial gold will have had to be washed on tables supplied by a separate stream (as was done in the 19th century gold-rushes). Peterlewis (talk) 19:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Archeologists (cf. Braund) see no evidence of placer mining in Colchis prior to 500 BC. Since the events related in the Golden Fleece story occurred about 1200 BC, this technique, even if used elsewhere in the world at that time, could not have been the source of the myth. On the contrary, if this mining technique was well-known in ancient times, it is unlikely to have been the source of this myth, because the myth embodies a unique event in the ancient history of Greece. The wording of this section should reflect the prevailing archeological opinion that placer mining was not the source of the myth. Canon (talk) 21:12, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

So how else was gold won in the ancient world if not from placers? It is surely likely to have been found first in placer deposits rather than hard rock ores, where extraction is far more difficult. Myths don't necessarily relate unique events but also general truths. As an archaeologist myself, the placer throery is far more likely than other explanations.Peterlewis (talk) 21:24, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Braund, who is an archeologist specializing in ancient Georgia, has this to say:

A rather different ancient explanation held that the myth of the Golden Fleece grew out of the method used to win gold in the streams of the Caucasus mountains. It is said that the Caucasians placed fleeces in the water, fastened to boards: these gathered articles of gold from the streams. In recent years it has been claimed that anthropological research has established the existence of the practice in Svaneti down to modern times, so that the ancient rationalization of the myth has found numerous and authoritative modern supporters. Such support is misplaced. First, as we have seen, myths of golden sheep and wool are not confined to the Caucasus, so that no explanation in purely Caucasian terms can be sufficient. Second, there is no suggestion that fleeces were ever used in this way in Colchis proper, so that the location of the fleece in Colchis requires explanation; nor is its very special significance in any way explained. Third, Colchian gold is only found in any quantity from the fifth century BCE: before the seventh century there is almost nothing. Consequently, the gold artefacts from Colchis which have been used to support the rationalization, tell rather against it, for the myth precedes them by several centuries. Fourth, the evidence of anthropology is far less sure than has been imagined. Recent research has exposed the potential fallibility of anthropological fieldwork, in general. In this particular case, the fieldworker, Botchorishvili, was notably more cautious in her account than have been her followers.

Botchorishvili’s essential problem was that she did not witness the use of fleeces for this purpose, though it has subsequently been claimed that she did. Rather, she relied on the reports of three elderly mountainmen whose credibility is not beyond question. Not only did they disagree to some extent on the precise method used, but they also made a much larger and related claim, that a flourishing city of the region had been lost beneath the ice, Atlantis-like. It is entirely possible that their accounts of the use of fleeces for goldwinning in Svaneti derive from memories of the legend and rationalization, for both are very widely known and re-told in contemporary Georgia.

Thus this explanation is a later rationalization of the myth. The preeminent scholar in the area, the modern Georgian archeologist Otar Lordkipanidze, offers this more likely explanation:

What did the Golden Fleece stand for in ancient Greek mythology? Or, in other words, what did the Golden Fleece symbolize? The key to this most involved question should, I believe, be sought in the ancient notions attested by many peoples about the magic power of the ram, especially its skin or fleece. In ancient Anatolia, for example, the skin or fleece of a ram (as well as of a goat) was considered an object of worship: a ritual symbol personifying a god-protector. The fleece played an especially important role in Hittite religion.

[…]

Thus, the Golden ram (or its fleece) in the Royal House of the Pelopides was its protector and symbol of royal power.

[…]

It is, therefore, easy to understand why Pelias sent Jason to recover the Golden Fleece: whoever owned the Fleece could reign!

[…]

Notions of the Golden Fleece as a symbol of royal power and guardian of the royal house must be considered archaic, doubtless an ideology of pre-polis times.

The citations for these extracts are given in the article. If you'd like further citations, drop me an email. Canon (talk) 05:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. 206.72.25.210 (talk) 17:04, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

Fleece theories

Brand's ideas are pure speculation without evidential support. To say that people thought that the ram was a magic symbol is trite. So what ancient people worshipped the ram? The washing theory is more credible and is based on the potential use of a fleece for collecting gold dust. Gold was the first metal to be produced in all cultures and its properties were seen as magical (colour, lack of corrosion, malleability) so was fabricated into sacred objects, crowns and so on. There is general agreement among archaeologists that washing placer deposits is the most likely source of the first extraction methods rather than hard rock mining. Gold dust occurs by weathering of the latter, and further concentration occurs by river action into nuggets. Fleeces would have been an efficient form of collection because the fine hairs impede the flow of water on a washing table, and the greases present in the hair will have held the gold when trapped by the hairs. Of course it is only a theory, and my minor changes to the article simply clarified the issues. Peterlewis (talk) 06:27, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The theory that the Golden Fleece represented the importation of fleece-based mining technology from Colchis to ancient Greece faces two difficulties: first, fleece-based mining technology was developed millennia before the origin of the Golden Fleece myth (which was around 1200 BCE), and second, while cultures around the Black Sea were later known for their metallurgy, Colchis in that time period was not. Archeologists believe that this theory of the origin of the myth is post-facto rationalization, as are many of the other theories listed in the article.

To understand the likely origin of the myth, it is necessary to understand the culture in which the myth arose. There is a vast difference between the metallurgically sophisticated culture of the Black Sea ca. 500 BCE, the culture of Homer ca. 700 - 900 BCE in which the myth was first written down, and culture of Colchis ca. 1200 BCE. Archeologists specializing in this period, such as Professors Braund and Lordkipanidze, spend years immersed in the artifacts of the culture and develop a sense for the contemporary beliefs, concerns, religion, economics, etc. The opinions of these specialists necessarily carry much weight; they are unanimous in doubting the fleece-based mining explanation.

The original wording of the article was intended to record the fleece-based mining explanation and to indicate that it is anachronistic. The new wording gives this theory more credence than the literature supports. Canon (talk) 17:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Anachronistic?? It sounds to me as though you accept strange ideas without any degree of reality. As one who has published many papers in learned journals about ancient gold mining, the theory of placer washing is much more credible than most of the other suggestions in the current article. Historians who immerse themselves in a culture risk losing sight of the overall picture of basic technology. I simply corrected the current article to reflect a reasonable interpretation of the theory, not a POV attempt to distort the hypothesis. Peterlewis (talk) 18:15, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Wetman has edited the article to emphasize a point discussed previously. In doing so I believe the correct balance has been restored to the article. Canon (talk) 20:34, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Evolution of the myth

I'd like to propose that either we start a new section on this topic and move the second and third paragraphs of the Interpretations section to it, or we consider this as an extension to the Synthesized Plot Synopsis section and move those same two paragraphs to the end of that section. Opinions? Canon (talk) 18:59, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

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Golden Fleece as Merino Sheep Wool

You know Merino was name of a tribe of Berbers, living in Northern Africa, Sahara, part also of Tuareg, who entered the Iberian Peninsula through the Gibraltar strait along with Arabs, bringing with them their fine wool sheep, wearing their name. For professor Villena, microbiologist at 12 de Octubre Hospital, Madrid, Spain: 'Egyptians, Berbers, Guanches and Baskes', all shared ethnicity (a common trait in all of them being a higher presence of negative Rh factor), language, culture, old religion. It can be proposed that Ancient Greeks may have had, as an extreme sport, going to the land of Berbers, near the Hercules Columns, cutting a fleece from their sheep and returning to homeland. There was a 20th century report of an adult Cyclope living in one of the Canary Islands; besides multimalformed fetuses having an elephant like trunk, a single eye, congenital severe heart disease, who die soon after delivery, the Cyclopean Anomaly is described in sheep having eaten some plants that contain what was later identified as an Edgehog pathway inhibitor, this leading to discovery of 'Vismodegib', a successful drug in fighting cancer. In studying legends, a good approach may be considering it as true events, but arriving to us deformed and adorned by passing along many copyists and story tellers. Denial is a psychopathic personality trait, even if hidden as 'hyper-rationality', or 'materialism'. Paranoid personalities have their pleasure in applying punishments to those offending 'the official and only truth', and get some cents from this. Beware of Dog! DáDá Siegt! Agur. Salut + — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hijuecutivo (talk • contribs) 16:50, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

"Aries (mythology)" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Aries (mythology). The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 October 24#Aries (mythology) until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 15:45, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

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"The story is of great antiquity and was current in the time of Homer", source? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.126.4.241 (talk) 04:57, 12 August 2023 (UTC)