Heyerdahl's Ra II
In 1970, the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and an international crew sailed a boat made of papyrus reeds from the Moroccan coast across the Atlantic Ocean to Barbados. The voyage of Ra II was meant to show that ancient peoples could have crossed the ocean in simple reed craft. It did not prove they did, but it demonstrated that such a journey was physically possible, and it made Heyerdahl one of the most famous explorers of the twentieth century.
Heyerdahl had already gained worldwide fame with the Kon-Tiki expedition of 1947, when he sailed a balsa raft from Peru into the Pacific. He was interested in the idea that ancient cultures were connected by sea more often than scholars assumed. Reed boats appear in Egyptian art, and similar designs were used on Lake Titicaca in South America and elsewhere. Heyerdahl saw these resemblances as possible evidence of early contact across the Atlantic, perhaps linking Mediterranean and North African civilizations with those of Mesoamerica, where pyramids were also built.
His first attempt, Ra, set out in 1969 but began to break apart and was abandoned short of its goal. The problem was traced partly to the construction, particularly the stern, which lacked the upward curve of ancient designs, and to the way the vessel was rigged. For Ra II, Heyerdahl brought in boatbuilders from Lake Chad region and Bolivian Aymara craftsmen from Lake Titicaca, whose reed-building traditions were still alive. The boat was built at Safi, in Morocco, and the crew of seven came from several countries, including the Soviet Union, the United States, Mexico, Egypt, Italy, and Morocco.
Ra II left Safi in May 1970 and, helped by the Canary Current and trade winds, reached Barbados after roughly two months at sea. The reeds held up far better than before, absorbing water yet remaining buoyant. The crew also noted the amount of floating oil lumps and other pollution in the open ocean, and Heyerdahl later reported this to the United Nations, adding an environmental message to the adventure.
Historians and archaeologists have generally not accepted Heyerdahl's broader theory of regular transatlantic contact in antiquity. Evidence from archaeology, genetics, and linguistics does not support it, and the independent development of pyramids and reed boats is considered plausible. Even so, Ra II is remembered as a feat of experimental archaeology and a symbol of international cooperation during the Cold War. It showed that ancient materials and techniques could be far more capable than people expected, and it encouraged later experimental voyages to test what early seafarers might have achieved.