Ancient Egyptian papyrus boats
Ancient Egypt was tied to a boat shape with papyrus, with stilts at the bow and stern, making it easy to drag through the shoals with ropes or with papyrus square sails. This boat sails on the Nile.
Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl built the papyrus boat Ra (the ancient Egyptian name of the sun god) in 1969.
Departing from Safi, Morocco, the Ra traveled 5,000 kilometers in eight weeks.
Tie the papyrus
It had to be abandoned due to excessive water absorption by papyrus, and there was only one week left before arriving in Barbados
In 1970, Thor Heyerdahl built the Ra II again, still from Safi.
It took 57 days to reach Barbados and sailed 6,100 kilometers
The move proves that there may have been contacts between the Mediterranean, South America, and Central America before Columbus.
The ship is now located at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Norway
Episode & Follow-up:
During the voyage, Thor Heyerdahl discovered oil tanks at sea and salvaged oil blocks, which he reported to the United Nations, prompting the 1972 international maritime ban: a ban on the dumping of waste oil into the ocean
Second Expedition
In 1977, Thor Heyerdahl built the Tigris River papyrus boat in Iraq to demonstrate possible exchanges between Mesopotamia and the present-day Pakistani and Indus Valley civilizations.
It reaches Pakistan via the Persian Gulf and then into the Red Sea.
Biography of the Grass Boat Voyage by Thor Heyerdahl, Domestic Translation of the Sun Straw Boat Expedition
The documentary on ra's voyage won an Oscar.
National Geographic Magazine's Ra II issue in January 1971
In 2002, Thor Heyerdahl died
Image from the web