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Across the Atlantic​—on Papyrus

BY “AWAKE!” CORRESPONDENT IN DENMARK

“A SAILING haystack,” “a paper swan,” “a floating bird’s nest.” These were some of the names given to a strange bark that was launched from a Moroccan seaport on May 17 last year. It bore no resemblance to any seagoing vessel with which we are familiar. Yet, its master, ethnologist Thor Heyerdahl, famous skipper of the Kon-Tiki expedition of some twenty years ago, intended to venture it out on the open sea. In fact, he planned to cross the Atlantic to Central America​—a voyage of 3,750 miles!

What raised many an eyebrow in scientific circles was the primitiveness of the vessel. It was constructed almost entirely of papyrus reeds, reminiscent of the ancient craft used on the river Nile back in the time of the Pharaohs. But why did Heyerdahl choose such a strange bark? What would he accomplish by his project?

The Puzzle of Central America

His aim was to throw some light on a much-debated question, namely, Is there a connection between the civilization of the ancient Mediterranean lands and the civilization found by the Spaniards when they reached Central America four or five hundred years ago? The subject has occupied many scholars.

The Spanish conquerors or “conquistadores” who crossed the ocean in the wake of Columbus encountered something more than primitive nomads. They met capable scribes, architects, artists, astronomers and surgeons in well-organized cities, ruled by sun-worshiping king-priests. These had a calendar system more accurate than that used in Europe. Their surgeons could patch up fractures, they could embalm the dead, they could perform brain operations. There were roads paved with stones, enormous aqueducts and impressive suspension bridges. There were monuments, beautifully carved, pyramids and other magnificent structures.

Only the ruins of that advanced civilization now remain. The greedy conquerors from Europe ravaged and plundered the cities, enslaving those of the population that were not massacred for refusing to accept the Catholic religion. The king-priests and their armies practically surrendered to a handful of Spanish soldiers. Why? They had a tradition that “white, bearded men” from across the ocean once brought civilization to them, and now they thought this new wave of white men came as friends also.

Was it simply a matter of coincidence that the people of Middle America had pyramids, mummies, brain operations, sun worship and king-priests, just as did the ancient Egyptians? Or was it because that Indian tradition was based on fact, and “white, bearded men” had drifted across the ocean via the transatlantic current that starts from off the North African coast?

“Right into the twentieth century,” writes Thor Heyerdahl, “it was an accepted theory that there was only one cradle of civilization, which stood not far from the Bible lands, from where the civilization spread across continents and oceans to all parts of the world.” The account in the Bible book of Genesis says that the first communities after the Flood were established in Mesopotamia, the region between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, and that from there mankind came to be scattered over “all the surface of the earth.”​—Gen. 10:8-12; 11:8.

Criticisms of Science

Critically minded anthropologists soon attacked this view. They considered the Bible as “too old” to be of any scientific value in relation to past history. Influenced by the evolution theory, they considered that the culture of Central America was an independent development. They argued that the close physical and mental relationship among all kinds of men would make them react in a similar way under similar conditions. Columbus, they believed, was the first to come to America apart from primitive immigrants who crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia. Thus they evolved what came to be considered an “indisputable scientific fact.”

A few decades passed, and this “scientific fact” began to crumble. Other scientists produced evidence to show that the Atlantic was crossed long before the time of Columbus. There was that Viking settlement in Newfoundland, among other things. So yesterday’s “solid scientific fact” is exposed today as a texture of speculations without adequate foundation.

Scientific experts also claimed that the voyage across the ocean could not be made on a boat made of reeds or papyrus, such as was anciently used by the Egyptians. Egyptologists were of the opinion that those reed vessels were usable only on a river, and would not stand the stress and strain of ocean movement. It was also claimed that the papyrus would become soaked with seawater and start decaying in less than two weeks.

But Thor Heyerdahl was not impressed by all the scientific criticism. He believed that such modern theories could be proved wrong. Indeed, he had reason to distrust scientific “authorities.”

“Authorities” Can Be Wrong

Before he sailed from South America to Polynesia on the famous balsa raft, the Kon-Tiki, back in 1947, all “experts” were of the opinion that the ancient civilizations of America did not carry impulses to the islands of the Pacific by means of their balsa rafts and reed boats. In 1943, J. E. Weckler wrote that no American Indians had seagoing vessels that could make the voyage to Polynesia. The same view could be read in a textbook written by the Polynesia expert, Sir Peter Buck, two years later. And it seems that this author got the information from his colleague Dr. Kenneth P. Emory, curator of the Bishop Museum in Hawaii.

Back in 1942 Emory had abandoned the idea that the ancient Americans had any contact with Polynesia. Why? Because another colleague had informed him that the balsa raft soon becomes waterlogged. He, in turn, had drawn his information from a treatise written by a South America specialist wherein it was stated that balsa wood loses its buoyancy completely after a few weeks.

The specialist obtained his information from the recorded travels of an Englishman who, about a century ago, had seen a balsa raft off the South American coast. The captain of the ship bearing this traveler told him that within a few weeks the balsa wood ‘lost much of its buoyancy.’ It is not known where the captain got his information. His words were accepted, and, says Heyerdahl, while “numerous teachers transmitted what they knew without even stating their sources, the doctrine became an axiom.”

Nevertheless, Heyerdahl sailed 5,000 miles on a balsa raft, and the fiction dubbed “scientific fact” was exposed for what it was. There was good reason to believe the scientists were all astray as to the use of the papyrus craft too. Though denying that a boat of reeds would keep afloat for more than two weeks, it appeared that none of these “experts” on Egypt had ever seen a papyrus boat in reality.

Seagoing Vessels of Reed

Vessels constructed out of reeds were in use by American Indians along the Pacific coast from California to Chile at the time the Spaniards arrived. Such boats were in use on several Mexican lakes too. Similar types were common “from Iraq to Ethiopia, across North and Central Africa to Chad, Niger and Morocco, and even in Sardinia.”​—Hjemmet, December 2, 1969, p. 7.

When the Spanish reached the Peruvian coast they saw many boats made of thin reeds, bound in bundles, with elegantly curved prow and stern, somewhat after the fashion of the ancient Viking ships. Some were large enough to take a crew of twenty-four, and they pulled easily through the surf along the coast of the Inca Empire.

“Peruvian vases,” writes Heyerdahl, “from the time before the Incas often have pictures of double-decked reed boats with a lot of passengers and freight. On Lake Titicaca reed boats large enough for carrying cattle, even in stormy weather, are still built. On excursions with the mountain Indians the seaworthiness as well as the carrying capacity of the boats impressed me greatly.” Even on Easter Island, far out in the Pacific, pictures of reed boats with masts and sails have been found on stone monuments.

Not all agree that reed boats were confined to river navigation in the Mediterranean region and farther east. Says the book The Story of the First Ships: “Wooden ships did not exist in ancient Egypt until after the Pharaohs started to get supplies of timber. The Mediterranean Sea was navigated by enterprising mariners in boats made of papyrus reeds covered with bitumen.” And the Roman author, Pliny the Elder, tells of voyages between the Ganges and Ceylon, and taking usually about twenty days, “made by papyrus ships with rig from the Nile.”

It was evident that papyrus vessels were seaworthy and could withstand a great deal of pounding by the wind and the waves. If such a craft could float for more than two weeks on the waves of the Atlantic, Heyerdahl believed, then the experiment would also demonstrate the possibility that Mediterranean mariners had reached and influenced the cultural developments in America long before Columbus arrived.

Building the Reed Boat

Pictures of Egyptian vessels were studied in museums all over the world. Dr. Bjorn Landstrom, Swedish expert on Egyptian drawings of ships, went to Cairo to copy pictures of the reed boats of the Pharaohs. From these models the boat was built.

The materials were supplied from Ethiopia. All together, twelve tons of dried papyrus stems, three to five yards long, were freighted over the mountains to the building site behind the pyramids in the Egyptian desert. The papyrus was bound in bundles with miles of rope, and fashioned into the proper shape.

When completed it had a length of about fifty feet and a breadth of some sixteen feet. The bottom was five feet thick. Amidships was a basket hut serving as cabin for the crew of six besides Heyerdahl himself. To the thirty-two-foot twin mast was fastened a brown, trapezoidal cotton sail with an orange sun disk. The vessel was named after the Egyptian sun-god, Ra.

The Expedition

The unique vessel was transported to the Moroccan seaport of Safi, westernmost port known to the ancient Egyptians. After a week in the harbor the “Ra” was towed out into the Canary Current, which would carry it westward. Here is Heyerdahl’s own account of what happened next:

“The papyrus bundles undulated like rubber cables over the waves. Thick oars were smashed like matches, but not one papyrus stem broke. . . . the papyrus stems were solid like bamboo fibers and tough like rope. Three weeks passed. Four weeks passed. Soon we had sailed a longer distance than from Egypt to Crete, to Greece, to Italy, yes, longer than any distance within the Mediterranean Sea. [And farther than the “authorities” believed they could!] The waves still came roaring against us. . . . but the papyrus remained equally strong and tough. After six weeks we had sailed as far as from Copenhagen to the North Pole.”

But, as related in the news subsequently, the boat encountered a storm center east of the Antilles, and some papyrus started to work loose on the starboard side where the floor of the hut had worn over the ropes that lashed the papyrus stems together. The mast was broken off by the storm. A few days later Thor Heyerdahl and his crew were forced to leave the papyrus boat because the presence of sharks made further repairs by the crew impossible. They had been fifty-two days on the Atlantic, had sailed some 3,125 miles, and were only about 600 miles from Barbados in the West Indies.

Experiment Not a Failure

Closer examination of all the facts will reveal that despite the shipwreck the experiment was no failure. Heyerdahl was quite satisfied that they got “sufficient proof that a papyrus boat is a seaworthy vessel.” He also assigned as reason for the wreck the fact that he and his crew “had made so many blunders as only modern man can make when he wants to handle an ancient vessel without any instructors.”

An Italian university professor was of the same opinion. Said he: “The boat was built with a stern that was too low. The Egyptians first refused to build the stern on the Ra, and the low stern which was finally built is one of the reasons why the vessel was so quickly broken down by the heavy sea. Another reason is the unusually bad weather the expedition had to cope with.”

It was demonstrated that frail reed vessels used by the Mediterranean peoples could and may well have crossed the Atlantic, either purposefully or driven by storm, and made contact with the natives of Central America. It could also have happened that some such visitors remained long enough to teach the natives some of their arts and crafts and religious ideas.