Thor heyerdahl download free

The former was called the Great Arrival; the latter, the Lesser Arrival. To this ancient leader, Itzamna, the nation alluded as their guide, instructor, and civilizer. It was he who gave names to all the rivers and divisions of land; he was their first priest and taught them the proper rites wherewith to please the gods and appease their ill-will; he was the patron of the healers and diviners and had disclosed to them the myserious virtues of plants.

It was Itzamna who first invented the characters of letters in which the Mayas wrote their numerous books, and with which they carved in such profusion on the stone and wood of their edifices.

He also devised their calendar, one more perfect even than that of the Mexicans, though in a general way similar to it. Thus, Itzamna, regarded as ruler, priest, and teacher, was, no doubt, spoken of as an historical personage, and is so put down by various historians, even to the most recent.

After the Great Arrival came the Lesser: the second important hero-myth of the Mayas was that of Kukulcan. This is in no way connected with that of Itzamna, and is probably later in date, and less in national character. The natives affirmed, says Las Casas, that in ancient times there came to that land twenty men, the chief of whom was called 'Cocolcan'. They wore flowing robes and sandals on their feet, they had long beards and their heads were bare, they ordered that the people should confess and fast.

Kukulcan was remembered as a great architect and pyramid builder who founded the city of Mayapan and caused various important edifices to be built at Chichen Itza. He taught the people to refrain from using arms--even for hunting--and under his beneficent rule, the nation enjoyed peace, prosperity, and abundant harvests. The mere idea of the cruel and bellicose Mayas' having invented such a peace-loving doctrine as that of Kukulcan, the immigrant priest-king, is as surprising as the insistence on the part of these beardless natives on the flowing beards, fair skin, and long robes of this cultured wanderer and his followers.

Nevertheless, his humanitarian teachings and cultural activities coincide completely with those of Quetzalcoatl. Moreover, while Aztec tradition has Quetzalcoatl disappearing eastward in the direction of Yucatan, Maya tradition has Kukulcan coming from the west, from the direction of Mexico.

Brinton points out that one of the Maya chronicles opens with a distinct reference to Tula and Nonoal--names inseparable from Quetzalcoatl tradition--and he concludes:. The probability seems to be that Kukulcan was an original Maya divinity, one of their hero-gods, whose myth had in it so many similarities of Quetzalcoatl that the priests of the two nations came to regard the one as the same as the other.

Heyerdahl's popular book on the subject, Aku-Aku was another international best- seller. Based on native testimony and archeological research, he claimed the island was originally colonized by Hanau eepe quot;Long Earsquot; , from South America, and that Polynesians Hanua momoko quot;Short Earsquot; arrived only in the midth century; they may have come independently or perhaps were imported as workers. According to Heyerdahl, something happened between Admiral Roggeveen's discovery of the island in and James Cook's visit in ; while Roggeveen encountered white, Indian, and Polynesian people living in relative harmony and prosperity, Cook encountered a much smaller population consisting mainly of Polynesians and living in privation.

Heyerdahl speculates there was an uprising of quot;Short Earsquot; against the ruling quot;Long Ears. During the uprising, Heyerdahl claimed, the quot;Long Earsquot; ignited their moat and retreated behind it, but the quot;Short Earsquot; found a way around it, came up from behind, and pushed all but two of the quot;Long Earsquot; into the fire.

In and , Heyerdahl built two boats from papyrus and attempted to cross the Atlantic from Morocco in Africa. Based on drawings and models from ancient Egypt, the first boat, named Ra, was constructed by boat builders from Lake Chad in the Republic of Chad using reed obtained from Lake Tana in Ethiopia and launched into the Atlantic Ocean from the coast of Morocco.

After a number of weeks, Ra took on water after its crew made modifications to the vessel that caused it to sag and break apart. The ship was abandoned and the following year, another similar vessel, Ra II was built by boatmen from Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and likewise set sail across the Atlantic from Morocco, this time with great success. The boat reached Barbados, thus demonstrating that mariners could have made trans-Atlantic voyages by sailing with the Canary Current.

While the purpose of the Ra voyages was merely to prove the seaworthiness of ancient vessels constructed of buoyant reeds, others, notably The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Mormons , have cited the success of the Ra II expedition as evidence that Egyptian mariners could have journeyed, by design or happenstance, to the New World in prehistoric times. A book, The Ra Expeditions, and a film documentary were made about the voyages.

Apart from the primary aspects of the expedition, Heyerdahl deliberately selected a crew representing a great diversity in race, nationality, religion and political viewpoint in order to demonstrate that at least on their own little floating island, people could cooperate and live peacefully. Additionally, the expedition took samples of ocean pollution and presented their report to the United Nations.

Heyerdahl built yet another reed boat, Tigris, which was intended to demonstrate that trade and migration could have linked Mesopotamia with the Indus Valley Civilization in what is now modern-day Pakistan.

Tigris was built in Iraq and sailed with its international crew through the Persian Gulf to Pakistan and made its way into the Red Sea. After about 5 months at sea and still remaining seaworthy, the Tigris was deliberately burnt in Djibouti, on April 3, as a protest against the wars raging on every side in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa.

In Heyerdahl's open letter to the Secretary of the United Nations he said in part: In the years that followed, Heyerdahl was often outspoken on issues of international peace and the environment.

Total views 3, On Slideshare 0. From embeds 0. Number of embeds 5. Downloads Shares 0. The Ra Expeditions. A hardback First Edition in Very Good condition, in a similar dustjacket. Book Condition and format: Very Good, Hardcover. Uploaded by scampbell3 on February 27, Internet Archive's 25th Anniversary Logo.

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