Argonauts Argonauts The Argonauts (; Ancient Greek: Ἀργοναῦται "Argonautai") were a band of heroes in Greek mythology, who in the years before the Trojan War, around 1300 BC, accompanied Jason to Colchis in his quest to find the Golden Fleece. Their name comes from their ship, "Argo", named after its builder, Argus. "Argonauts" literally means ""Argo" sailors". They were sometimes called Minyans, after a prehistoric tribe in the area. After the death of King Cretheus, the Aeolian Pelias usurped the Iolcan throne from his half-brother Aeson and became king of Iolcus in Thessaly (near the modern city of Volos). Because of
Colchis the Golden fleece. It was also described as a land rich with gold, iron, timber and honey that would export its resources mostly to ancient Greece. Colchis was populated by Colchians, an early Kartvelian-speaking tribe, ancestral to the contemporary Western Georgians, namely Svans and Mingrelians, as well as the related Lazs. Its geography is mostly assigned to what is now the western part of Georgia and encompasses the present-day Georgian provinces of Samegrelo, Imereti, Guria, Adjara, Abkhazeti, Svaneti, Racha; modern Russia’s Sochi and Tuapse districts; and present-day Turkey’s Rize, Trabzon and Artvin provinces. The kingdom of Colchís, Kolkhís or "Qulḫa"