Jason And The Argonauts: Revealed (five) : UNLESS you're a Greek scholar, I bet your knowledge of Jason and his shipmates, the Argonauts, has been gleaned from the 1963 movie.

This documentary duly showed a clip from the film and talked to Ray Harryhausen, who brought to life the mythical creatures encountered by Jason after setting sail in search of the Golden Fleece.

The programme aimed to see if there was any basis in reality for his epic journey into the unknown, one of the oldest Greek myths and the first voyage story in literature. By the end, there were still some "maybes" hanging over certain areas, but it made for an intriguing journey.

Jason might have been a merchant or executive on a trading expedition rather than an adventurer. We know his sea trip was physically possible because, in 1984, explorer and author Tim Severin built his own Argo and successful followed the same route.

The original voyagers stopped off for two years on an island populated entirely by women. The female islanders had only one request, that the visitors sire as many children as possible during their stay. It was a dirty job but someone had to do it.

Then the truth emerged. The women had killed all the male islanders because they wouldn't have anything to do with them. The problem was that the women smelt after dying fleeces using a process involving rotten garlic. Jason's trip became one of "sex, death and bad odours".

Recent archaeological finds support the theory that Jason reached Georgia in Russia. Here, in villages high in the mountains, they prospect for gold using sheep's fleeces to sift for hidden treasure - the origin, possibly, of the Golden Fleece that Jason was after.

He got hold of it thanks to Medea using her magic powers. They married, pausing only to murder her father, but there was no happy ever after. Jason dumped her for a younger women, after which she killed her own children and poisoned his new bride.