Ra (ship)
Ra is the name of two papyrus boats with which Thor Heyerdahl tried from 1969 to cross the Atlantic in an east-west direction.
background
Among the expeditions Heyerdahl saw different cultural assets by remarkable coincidence Africa (particularly Egypt ), South America and Polynesia initiated. In addition to paintings or buildings such as pyramids , there were also boats made of reed both on Lake Titicaca and Lake Chad as well as on representations in Polynesia and in Egyptian pyramids. Many archaeologists (the "isolationists") took the view that such agreements would only come about if people, under similar conditions, took similar solutions to problems and cultural developments.
The "isolationists" did not recognize the influence of foreign peoples from overseas, since it was not possible to cross the ocean with the resources of the time. Heyerdahl, a " diffusionist ", undertook his expeditions to show that peoples from northern Africa could have been able to cross the Atlantic with the reed boats of that time.
Ra
On May 25, 1969 Heyerdahl started from Safi in Morocco with the 15 m long Ra heading west. In this boat, named after the Egyptian sun god Re and designed according to the Egyptian-Phoenician model, his helpers built 12 tons of papyrus. They were instructed by three papyrus boat builders from the Buduma (Yedina) people from Bol on Lake Chad .
However, there were disagreements during the construction because the boat builders from Chad were not willing to adhere to the specifications from Egyptian reliefs and wall paintings. In addition to details such as the controls, which were only vaguely recognizable from the templates, this led to design defects that soon made the journey more difficult. In addition to the multiple breakage of the double rudder (control), it was above all the noticeably sinking rear of the vehicle that slowed down the journey; After a storm that had carried away a large amount of papyrus on the windward side , Ra was abandoned after more than 5,000 km and 56 days of travel on July 18, a few days before the destination Barbados , despite protests from part of the team.
Another important aspect of this experiment was for Heyerdahl to gather as many different nations as possible in a minimal space that were committed to a common goal:
| nation | Surname | role |
|---|---|---|
 Egypt
|
Georges Sourial | Underwater expert |
 Italy
|
Carlo Mauri | camera operator |
 Mexico
|
Santiago Genovés | Provision management |
 Norway
|
Thor Heyerdahl | management |
 Chad
|
Abdullah Djibrine | Papyrus expert |
.svg){kind=small} Soviet Union
|
Yuri Senkevich | doctor |
 United States
|
Norman Baker | navigator |
The reed boat sailed under the flag of the United Nations.
Ra II
After the experiences from the first Ra expedition, Heyerdahl had the next vehicle built by four Aymara Indians from Lake Titicaca , on the assumption that their boats were closer to the presumed Egyptian origin than those from Inner Africa - among other things because the raised stern, the Had seemed useless to Chad boat builders, was taken for granted on Lake Titicaca. Should Heyerdahl's thesis that the Egyptians brought their culture to Central America prove to be true, the people around Tiahuanaco would be far more likely to inherit the shipbuilding concepts of their “ancestors” than the residents of a lake in the middle of Africa that could hardly have been touched by Egyptian culture.
Again there were inconsistencies in the construction: of about twelve tons of material, as used the first time, the Aymara left a good three tons after they had declared their vehicle "finished". This turned out to be a problem because the same cargo as on the first attempt now meant overloading: the boat had to be emptied after a few days, which resulted in rationing.
Ra II was about 12 m long, i.e. 3 m shorter than the Ra, and was built up completely differently: While the Ra had twice laid nine strands of reeds on top of each other, the thickest in the middle, the Ra II consisted of a double strand, with one in the middle bridged thinner strand and laterally increased by also thinner secondary strands. In contrast to the Ra, which bent over the waves, the Ra II was stiff.
With the Ra II , almost the same team set sail again under the flag of the UN from Safi on May 17, 1970 and reached Barbados on July 12, 1970 after 57 days and 6,100 km. During the voyage, oil spills were documented in the Atlantic that had already been discovered on the first voyage. Under public pressure, the first international environmental protection agreements were later concluded, with which Heyerdahl also became a pioneer of the environmental movement.
Others
Replicas of the Ra II are exhibited today in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo and in the Ancient Shipping Room in the Piramides de Güimar Park on Tenerife .
Heyerdahl's documentary Ra about this expedition was nominated for an Oscar in 1972 .
In 1973, Soviet mineralogists named a newly discovered layered silicate after the reed boat ( Rait ) in honor of the crew .
literature
- Thor Heyerdahl: Expedition Ra: With the sun boat into the past . Rowohlt Verlag , Reinbek 1976, ISBN 978-3-499-16863-5 .
- Yuri Senkewitsch: With the papyrus boat across the Atlantic. Brockhaus, Leipzig 1973.
- Michael Davie: Atlantic trip in a boat made of papyrus . In: Die Zeit , No. 22/1969, at the beginning of the first Ra crossing
Web links
- Kon-Tiki Museum
- Pyramides de Güimar Park on Tenerife
- Ra in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ WDR calendar sheet of May 25, 2009 , accessed on May 24, 2009
- ^ Thor Heyerdahl: Expedition Ra Mohndruck Reinhard Mohn OHG, Gütersloh, book no. 88491750, page 60; Page 126 ff
- ↑ Guy Immega: Ancient Egypt's LostLegacy? The Buduma Culture of LakeChad (English)
- ↑ Ra p. 72f.
- ^ Thor Heyerdahl: Expedition Ra Mohndruck Reinhard Mohn OHG, Gütersloh, book no. 88491750, pp. 281, 284