# Did the ancient Egyptians travel to South America and build the Inca pyamids? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 5, 2021, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528 "2021-12-05T00:28:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/81 "2021-12-12T06:21:33Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Also, I don’t recall hearing of inter-island warfare between groups on the widely spaced islands. After all, (a) there’s not much in the way of booty to make it worthwhile in Polynesian life, (b) there’s less likelihood of creating offense and feuds when it takes a week or more between islands, (c) any war party risks being overtaken by a whole angry island flotilla chasing them home. The Chatham Islands are 500 miles from New Zealand, which isn’t really widely spaced compared to other distances in Polynesia, and it happened in 1835, so not in ancient times, but the Moriori genocide is still one of the saddest stories of inter-island warfare. > **[Moriori genocide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moriori_genocide)** > > The Moriori genocide was the mass murder and enslavement of the Moriori people, the indigenous ethnic group of the Chatham Islands, by members of the mainland New Zealand iwi Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama from 1835 to 1863. The invaders murdered around 300 Moriori and enslaved the remaining population, causing the population to drop from 1,700 in 1835 to only 100 in 1870. > The Moriori are the indigenous population of the Chatham Islands (Moriori: Rēkohu), specifically Chatham Island and Pitt Is... ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/82 "2021-12-12T15:49:51Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > What reason to brave the oceans except for the prospect of wealth through trade or plunder. Are you saying that the impetus for plain _adventure_ is a uniquely modern motivation? That all pre-modern exploration endeavours had to be _material_ benefit-driven (even in cultures that possibly didn’t even have the same concepts of wealth?) This is addressed a little in Graeber and Wengrow’s _The Dawn of Everything_ - we know that just doing things purely for the motivation of adventure and curiosity was actually a fairly common thing across a range of cultures. Why not some Polynesians? ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/83 "2021-12-12T19:30:43Z")
I guess it depends on your funding. During the European Age of Sail, the expeditions were financed by the State or later, groups of investors that were to become the new Joint-Stock companies. These institutuions have very specific expectations for their considerable investment in ocean going ship and men. In antiquity there was trade between the civilisatons around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea and there was warfare. Plenty of ship wrecks, found full of cargo. So what drove the Polynesians to sail across the Pacific? A noble spirit of adventure to parts unknown? Or maybe younger sones searching for new lands to settle, goods to trade or wives to steal? If they behaved like the Māori when they invaded the Chatham islands, then it may not have ended well. [https://nzhistory.govt.nz/keyword/chatham-islands](https://nzhistory.govt.nz/keyword/chatham-islands) ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/84 "2021-12-12T19:40:38Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > If they behaved like the Māori when they invaded the Chatham islands I guess you didn’t bother to read two posts up? ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/85 "2021-12-12T20:40:04Z")
> [@GreenWyvern](#): > > I guess you didn’t bother to read two posts up?. Have you ever heard of the tragedy of the Chatham Islands? It’s not a story the Maori would tell you. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/86 "2021-12-12T21:04:50Z")
> [@filmstar-en](#): > > I guess it depends on your funding. Talking about “funding” for a society where people could make their own craft for just sweat equity is just _silly_. > [@filmstar-en](#): > > So what drove the Polynesians to sail across the Pacific? A noble spirit of adventure to parts unknown? Adventure and curiosity certainly existed at the time. “Noble spirit” is just unnecessary romanticizing of a natural human drive. Or possibly just sarcasm, I can’t tell. But either way, romantic or cynic, it’s an unhelpful stance to take on people in the past. And not even antiquity - most of Polynesia was being settled when Europe was experiencing the Middle Ages. Some knight setting out to seek adventure would not be out of place then, why would it be strange on the other side of the world? ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/87 "2021-12-12T22:32:58Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Imhotep the first verifiable person named in history who was not a ruler Is this true? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/88 "2021-12-12T22:54:09Z")
Probably not: > **[Kushim (Uruk period)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kushim_(Uruk_period))** > > Kushim is the earliest known example of a named person in writing. The name "Kushim" is found on several Uruk period (c. 3400–3000 BCE) clay tablets used to record transactions of barley. It is uncertain if the name refers to an individual, a generic title of an officeholder, or an institution. > Writing in the ancient Sumerian city Uruk was time-consuming and literacy was likely limited at the time. Therefore, writing was mainly used for essential record-keeping. A clay tablet detailing a trade t... Might be the runner up though. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2021, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/89 "2021-12-12T23:53:41Z")
Thanks. I’d be curious to know how they got 29,086 measures of barley out that hen scratch! 🤣 ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/90 "2021-12-13T02:19:05Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/MZVs6wF7nC4/maxresdefault.jpg "What was the first (known) maths mistake?") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZVs6wF7nC4) ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/91 "2021-12-13T06:47:19Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Might be the runner up though. See, but that’s the point - Imhotep was a verifiable person, as far as we can be certain of anything. We can’t be sure who or what Kushim is. > [@filmstar-en](#): > > Or maybe younger sones searching for new lands to settle, goods to trade or wives to steal? The search for new lands to settle would be the obvious choice. We can surmise that, once having done the same to a number of islands so far, expeditions to new islands probably became a celebrated part of the culture - a mission to seek out new islands, to boldly go where no man has gone before… But trade requires trade goods. the question would be, what did one place have that others did not? I think it was Jared Diamond’s book that discusses (in the context of Easter Island?) how the Pitcairn group failed. Each island was lacking something the others had, but they were too far apart for real trade to be sustained. However, there wasn’t a lot to trade between essentially similar islands in the rest of the area. Mediterranean trade centered on a number of things that were abundant in different locations; there was a thriving trade in metals, for example since they are found in only a few places - on place had tin, another had copper - bronze was a desirable commodity. Amphoras of wine have been found in shipwrecks - presumably some locales were better suited to growing grapes, others grew wheat, and so on - all conveniently centered on a smallish less wild sea where coastline hugging was the elementary first lesson in navigation. (I have the transcript from an old CBC _Ideas_ series where one professor suggests the Odyssey was about travel to Ireland then Scandinavia, as one bit describes where Odysseus was shipwrecked frost in summer was a problem, another mentions that the sun is up so long a man could do two days’ work. in a day. Plus, the trade route from Scandinavia through Russia to the black and Mediterranean seas was established even back then. And along with metals, the northerners could trade rich furs…) > [@gkster](#): > > The Chatham Islands are 500 miles from New Zealand, which isn’t really widely spaced compared to other distances in Polynesia, and it happened in 1835, so not in ancient times, but the Moriori genocide is still one of the saddest stories of inter-island warfare. I discounted the Chatham episode because my understanding was by the time it happened, the Maori had acquired assorted western technology including guns and shipbuilding supplies; and a need to burn off aggression that they could not do against the English. But then, the Maori have had a reputation for warlike tendencies, since the land was big enough to support multiple warring factions. I have not heard of the Polynesians natively warring between islands, unless they were very large land masses like New Zealand, or fairly close together. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/92 "2021-12-13T18:16:02Z")
I suppose an important point to make, too, is that there are random islands scattered all over the Pacific, many the result of volcanic action. Yet somehow, all these acquired plant life that grows on land. Presumably, somehow, once upon a time too - Madagascar managed to acquire a breeding pair of some sort of lemur, but nothing else similar. It may sometimes seem a stretch to blame Mother Nature for moving plants or animals from point A to point B, but somehow she manages. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/93 "2021-12-13T18:24:28Z")
When Japan experienced a tsumani, some of the huge amount of debris washed out to sea made it right across the Pacific. I guess it could work in the opposite direction at a lower latitudes. > **[Motorcycle swept away by Japanese tsunami reaches Canada](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/02/motorcycle-japanese-tsunami-reaches-canada)** > > Harley-Davidson that journeyed 4,000 miles and found washed up on Canadian island is identified by its owner ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/94 "2021-12-13T19:02:00Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > See, but that’s the point - Imhotep was a verifiable person, as far as we can be certain of anything. We can’t be sure who or what Kushim is. I suppose it does come down to the question of whether slaves are “persons” but I, for one, am fairly willing to accept the modern legal assumption that En-pap X and Sukkalgir _are_ people. I would also hold that they’re named in a document and that they aren’t nobility. The latter couldn’t be definitively said about Gal-Sal. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/95 "2021-12-13T20:24:12Z")
Thank you for that link. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/96 "2021-12-13T21:45:11Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > But then, the Maori have had a reputation for warlike tendencies, since the land was big enough to support multiple warring factions. I have not heard of the Polynesians natively warring between islands, unless they were very large land masses like New Zealand, or fairly close together. Plenty of Polynesians were natively warring with their enemies on the same island. Are you saying they never bothered raiding other islands? Was that taboo? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/97 "2021-12-13T21:57:46Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Thor Heyerdahl tried to show an Egyptian reed boat could make it across the Atlantic. The chief lesson of his book, _The Ra Expedition_ was that the Atlantic was full of garbage (and that was 50 years ago). IIRC, the boat essentially sank just short of the first Caribbean islands. Heyerdahl had several crackpot theories, including having South American indigenous people traveling to pre-Columbian Polynesia. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2021, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/98 "2021-12-13T23:12:16Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > > [@md-2000](#): > > > > But then, the Maori have had a reputation for warlike tendencies, since the land was big enough to support multiple warring factions. I have not heard of the Polynesians natively warring between islands, unless they were very large land masses like New Zealand, or fairly close together. > > Plenty of Polynesians were natively warring with their enemies on the same island. Are you saying they never bothered raiding other islands? Was that taboo? If close by, they went at each other like other societies around the world. The Hawaiians were not a peaceful bunch. Long distances, sure friendly. Seafaring groups in small (very small) numbers could not make up an invasion force plus they’d be out/short on supplies when they did land. ---
**Author:** ![velomont](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/8491ac/32.png) [@velomont](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/velomont)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2021, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/99 "2021-12-14T00:06:26Z")
True fact - the first proctologists were central American indigenous people - hence the name “Ass-techs”. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2021, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528/100 "2021-12-19T06:38:40Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > If close by, they went at each other like other societies around the world. The Hawaiians were not a peaceful bunch. Long distances, sure friendly. Seafaring groups in small (very small) numbers could not make up an invasion force plus they’d be out/short on supplies when they did land. Indeed. [King Kamehameha the Great](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamehameha_I) united the Hawaiian Islands by violently kicking all the other islands’ asses. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-the-ancient-egyptians-travel-to-south-america-and-build-the-inca-pyamids/955528.md?page=6)