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Thor Heyerdahl. Thor Heyerdahl KStJ (Norwegian pronunciation: [tuːr ˈhæ̀ɪəɖɑːɫ]; 6 October 1914 – 18 April 2002) was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in biology with specialization in zoology, botany and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he drifted 8,000 km (5,000 ...
The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca god Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. Heyerdal's book on the expedition was entitled The Kon-Tiki ...
The museum was originally built to house the Kon-Tiki, a raft of balsa wood of pre-Columbian model that Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used to sail from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. Another boat in the museum is the Ra II , a vessel built of reeds according to Heyerdahl's perception of an ancient Egyptian seagoing boat.
The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Across the South Seas (Norwegian: Kon-Tiki ekspedisjonen) is a 1948 book by the Norwegian writer Thor Heyerdahl. It recounts Heyerdahl's experiences with the Kon-Tiki expedition, where he travelled across the Pacific Ocean on a balsa tree raft. The book was first published in Norway on 2 November 1948, and sold ...
Reed boat craftsmen from Suriqui, a town on the Bolivian side of lake Titicaca, helped Thor Heyerdahl construct Ra II and Tigris. [12] Thor Heyerdahl attempted to prove that the reed boats of Lake Titicaca derived from the papyrus boats of Egypt. Near the south-eastern shore of Lake Titicaca lie the ruins of the ancient city state of Tiwanaku.
Pre-Columbian rafts were steered by a combination of adjusting the sails and the use of centerboards, called "guaras." These were boards typically about 60 centimetres (2.0 ft) wide inserted vertically into the sea between the balsa logs. On larger rafts there were three sets of the guaras at the front, back, and the middle of the raft.
Aku-Aku. First edition (Norwegian) Aku-Aku: the Secret of Easter Island is a 1957 book by Thor Heyerdahl [1] published in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish and Finnish, and in French and English the following year. The book describes the 1955–1956 Norwegian Archaeological Expedition 's investigations of Polynesian history and culture at Easter ...
In 1513, Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa crossed the Isthmus of Panama and encountered the Pacific Ocean, calling it the South Sea. In 1521, a Spanish expedition led by the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan was the first recorded crossing of the Pacific Ocean, Magellan then naming it the "peaceful sea."