On View : Treasured Memories : DISCOVERY SERIES RETRACES STEPS OF EXPLORERS, BEGINNING WITH MICHAEL ROCKEFELLER

Sam Putnam, a Boston physician, finally has begun to talk publicly about the death of his friend Michael Rockefeller 34 years ago in New Guinea. The youngest son of then-New York governor Nelson Rockefeller disappeared while trying to swim ashore from a stranded boat. His body was never found. Some speculated that he was eaten by cannibals.

“The Michael Rockefeller Story”--his passion for primitive art that took him to New Guinea and the changes his disappearance wrought in the lives of his family and friends--is the first hour of a four-part Discovery special airing Sunday and Monday.

The series, “Seekers of the Lost Treasure,” tells of the adventures behind four great archeological treasures, including the collection of primitive art that Rockefeller gathered and which is now permanently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

In Pasadena to discuss the series, Putnam relaxes against a hotel sofa and speaks softly of his friend. Putnam dismisses the three-decades old news reports that claimed young Rockefeller was captured and eaten by headhunters avenging the deaths of tribespeople who clashed with Dutch colonialists. Putnam thinks his chum drowned.

The series, Putnam says, marks the first time friends and family members of the Harvard-educated Rockefeller have come forward.

“I was very scared and very worried when I got interviewed for the film,” Putnam recalls. There were concerns that Rockefeller would be portrayed as a rich brat out to plunder the culture of native peoples. “Michael was a visionary,” Putnam says. “He had a passion for this art.”

Rockefeller’s trip to New Guinea, Putnam recalls, grew out of an idea hatched by the two friends shortly after they graduated from Harvard. They would go to what was then known as Dutch New Guinea to study native peoples and art.

After a successful trip, Putnam returned to the East Coast. But Rockefeller wanted to go farther into the jungle. He disappeared on that second journey back, in 1961. Michael Rockefeller’s father, Nelson, and and his twin sister, Mary Rockefeller, flew to New Guinea and combed the jungle looking for him. No trace was ever found.

The family collected the art he had gathered and saved his journals. They protected his memory fiercely, closing ranks against those who wanted to relate gory tales of Michael’s demise--for a Rockefeller-sized fee.

The family and Putnam believed that the “Seekers of the Lost Treasure” series would do justice to Michael Rockefeller’s memory.

Produced by Anthony Geffen and Atlantic Productions and funded by Discovery, the four-part series took two years to make at a cost of about $2 milion. Like other recently produced historical documentaries, including PBS’ series on Columbus, the programs make extensive use of re-enactments. (For the Rockefeller segment, Geffen persuaded members of the Dani tribe to demonstrate a head-hunting ceremony.)

While Mary broke down in the interviews, she continued to call up memories of her brother for the documentary. When she bade her brother goodby for his trip to New Guinea, she said she had a feeling that she would never see him again.

Putnam feels the documentary helps him close a painful chapter. “I’ve finally been able to put this to rest,” he says. “History will finally remember Michael.”

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THE OTHER SEEKERS

“Thompson and the Well of Sacrifice,” Part 2: The son of a railroad man, Edward Thompson became a diplomat to gain access to Mayan artifacts in Mexico. The segment reveals how the self-taught archeologist learned about Mayan rituals and how he brought 30,000 artifacts to the Peabody Museum in Boston. (Parts 1 and 2 air Sunday 9-11 p.m. and repeat midnight-2 a.m.)

“The Curse of the Elgin Marbles,” Part 3: Lord Elgin, a Scottish noble who took friezes and sculptures from the Parthenon in Greece to “rescue” them from devastation by Turkish troops, endured imprisonment, bankruptcy and the loss of his wife. Ownership of the treasures from the Parthenon is still a source of controversy between Greece and England.

“The Great Belzoni,” Part 4: The former circus performer was among the scholars, looters and thieves who brought archeological treasures to England from Egypt. With the aid of accomplished tomb robbers he became the first Westerner to set eye upon the tomb of Sethi I in the Valley of the Kings. (Parts 3 and 4 air Monday 9-11 and repeat midnight-2 a.m.).