Deep Memory/ Clues to a deeper past
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Evidence examined · Teachers & voyagers

Teachers from another world

Oannes, Viracocha and Quetzalcoatl, compared at the level of passages.

3 groups · 3 registered records · reviewed 2026-09-19
The Andean accounts / Mesopotamian accounts cluster Map DatesRead all 29 inspected source passages

Motif families: Teachers & travellers

Mesopotamian accounts

Mesopotamian teaching figures

The Oannes account surviving through later witnesses.

Why these examples belong together

One source family; retellings are not independent traditions.

Account · editorial paraphrase

A being from the sea teaches people, then returns to the water at night.

account · Mesopotamia

Oannes

A literary figure whose surviving account passes through several witnesses. No life date is plotted.

Dates, sources & image record
  • 3rd century BCE · compositioncomposition · Approximate period of Berossus’s writing; surviving evidence is mediated by later authors. Date source
  • 4th century CE · compilationwitness · Eusebius’s compilation is later than the attributed original work. Date source

Berossus through Eusebius, Chronicle I · Teaching figures: primary-source audit

Andean accounts

Andean teaching figures

Viracocha in the inspected colonial witness.

Why these examples belong together

One selected witness, not all Andean versions.

Account · editorial paraphrase

A creator and teacher travels through the Andes and departs across the sea.

account · Central Andes

Viracocha

The inspected account begins inland; walking away across the sea is a different motif from arriving by sea.

Dates, sources & image record
  • 1572 CE · written witnessrecording · Colonial recording, not the origin date of the tradition. Date source

History of the Incas (1572) · Teaching figures: primary-source audit

Nahua accounts

Mesoamerican teaching figures

Quetzalcoatl in the source-audit passages.

Why these examples belong together

One selected source family with distinct teaching and departure episodes.

Account · editorial paraphrase

Crafts and teachings are associated with Tollan; a later departure uses a serpent raft.

account · Central Mexico

Quetzalcoatl

The source audit keeps the teaching and departure passages separate. It does not import a return promise from a modern compressed retelling.

Dates, sources & image record
  • 1577 CE · codex witnesswitness · Completion context of the Florentine Codex, not the first existence of the tradition. Date source

Historia general / Florentine Codex · Teaching figures: primary-source audit

The proposed connection

What makes it a question?

Lists of teachers, civilisers and sea journeys suggest a shared story. Source-level comparison asks which elements actually travel together.

The project’s source audit tests the familiar proposed “civilisers” bundle. Hancock’s broader proposal is linked as context rather than as authorship of each formulation.
Teaching figures: primary-source audit

Look closely

What appears to correspond

  • Teaching or institutions are associated with each figure.
  • Water or sea departures occur in different parts of the selected accounts.
Keep in the frame

What differs or remains uncertain

  • Arrival from the sea, nightly return to the sea and final departure across it are different events.
  • Recording dates are not the dates at which the traditions began.
  • The compared accounts do not establish one matching promise of personal return.
Transmission check

No route established in this review

No transmission sequence for this specific comparison has been established in the sources reviewed. That is not proof that contact was impossible.

What would move this forward

  • Expand local versions and indigenous-language witnesses.
  • Blindly code event sequences with independently checked translations.
Follow the evidence

Sources & scope

Provisional editorial record; no independent specialist sign-off. Status describes review depth, not the probability of a historical connection.

  1. project · Deep Memory

    Teaching figures: primary-source audit

    29 inspected passages. The sea-arrival, teaching, departure and promised-return motifs do not all occur together in the compared accounts.

  2. primary-text · Berossus / Eusebius

    Berossus through Eusebius, Chronicle I

    Oannes appears from the sea, teaches and returns to it at night. Berossus’s work survives through later witnesses and translation.

  3. primary-text · Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa

    History of the Incas (1572)

    Colonial witness for Viracocha; the recording date is not the origin date of the tradition.

  4. primary-text · Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators

    Historia general / Florentine Codex

    Sixteenth-century witness. See the project’s Q1–Q4 locators for teachings and departure, with translation qualifications.

  5. claim · Graham Hancock

    Fingerprints of the Gods: author’s account

    Primary source for Hancock’s broad proposed relationship between Old and New World monuments and traditions, not a source for each guest author’s claim.

Continue exploring

Other threads, useful context

Comparison threadA sea journey that changes in the tellingOpen →Comparison threadThe navigator in the collageOpen →Comparison threadA warning, a boat, a world remadeOpen →