The 1969 Ra expedition of Thor Heyerdahl

Record summary

In 1969 Thor Heyerdahl launched Ra, a papyrus-reed boat built with African methods, to test whether ancient Egyptian or other Old World vessels could cross the Atlantic. The expedition ended before completion when the boat broke apart, but it generated a detailed documentary and methodological record. For religious and apocryphal comparison, the lead connects solar, Egyptian, and transoceanic symbolism with modern experimental claims about cultural contact. The voyage demonstrated possibility only imperfectly and did not establish that ancient religious traditions crossed the Atlantic by this route.