Deep Memory/ Clues to a deeper past
← Motif families
Across cultural traditions

Teachers & travellers

Arrivals, instruction and departures, checked against particular witnesses.

5 selected records · 0 intake leads. Membership records a resemblance; it does not establish common origin.

Compare the recorded features

Each row describes one object, surface or textual scope. A dash means “not recorded”, not “absent”. Features across different rows do not establish co-occurrence.

Record & scopeArrivalTeachingDeparture
Oannesnamed textual witnessRecordedRecordedRecorded
Viracochanamed textual witness——Recorded
Quetzalcoatlnamed textual witness—RecordedRecorded
Bochicanamed textual witness—Provisional—
Pohnpei navigator · story untracedmodern retellingProvisionalProvisional—
Cultural context

Mesopotamian accounts

Account · editorial paraphrase

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

Source-linked observation

Oannes

3rd century BCE · composition

ArrivalTeachingDeparture

The mediated Berossus account records emergence, instruction and return to the sea. These are events within this witness, not three independent attestations.

Episode, sources & image

Observation scope: named textual witness

  • 3rd century BCE · composition · composition
    Approximate period of Berossus’s writing; surviving evidence is mediated by later authors. Date source

Teaching figures: primary-source audit

Cultural context

Andean accounts

Account · editorial paraphrase

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

Source-linked observation

Viracocha

1572 CE · written witness

Departure

Departure over the sea is explicit in V3 of the source audit. The teaching claim is uncertain in the inspected passage.

Episode, sources & image

Observation scope: named textual witness

  • 1572 CE · written witness · recording
    Colonial recording, not the origin date of the tradition. Date source

Teaching figures: primary-source audit

Cultural context

Nahua accounts

Account · editorial paraphrase

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

Source-linked observation

Quetzalcoatl

1577 CE · codex witness

TeachingDeparture

Teaching and departure are recorded in the inspected witness; arrival from overseas and a personal return promise are not established there.

Episode, sources & image

Observation scope: named textual witness

  • 1577 CE · codex witness · witness
    Completion context of the Florentine Codex, not the first existence of the tradition. Date source

Teaching figures: primary-source audit

Cultural context

Muisca accounts

Account · editorial paraphrase

A teaching figure arrives by an inland route in the inspected colonial account.

Provisional reading

Bochica

1688 CE · publication

Teaching

The inspected account supports a teaching-figure comparison only provisionally; some craft claims need earlier witnesses. It describes disappearance, not a departure over the sea.

Episode, sources & image

Observation scope: named textual witness

  • 1688 CE · publication · witness
    Colonial published witness, not an event or origin date. Date source

Teaching figures: primary-source audit

Cultural context

Pohnpei · story untraced

Supplied social-media collage linking a wooden figure with Nan Madol
Provisional reading

Pohnpei navigator · story untraced

Date unresolved

ArrivalTeaching

Only the modern supplied post reports this unnamed tradition; an underlying witness has not been traced.

Episode, sources & image

Observation scope: modern retelling

  • Date unresolved · unresolved
    Neither the figure’s age nor the story’s earliest witness is verified.

Supplied-image identity register

Archaic Lens post; underlying photographer unresolved Rights unresolved; supplied image for critical comparison Image record
Existing source image; displayed uncropped. No generated reconstruction.

The proposed connections.

Proposed connectionTeachers from another worldEvidence · map · dates →Proposed connectionA sea journey that changes in the tellingEvidence · map · dates →Proposed connectionThe navigator in the collageEvidence · map · dates →

Input coverage & corrections · Add an image or source