Oslo: Kon-Tiki Museum: Kon-Tiki Raft

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Kon-Tiki is the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also the name of the popular book that Heyerdahl wrote about his adventures. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. (Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, these were argued to be incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey.)

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Size: 3413px × 5120px
Location: Norway: Oslo
Photo credit: © Aivar Mikko / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: bygdoy, capital, city, heyerdahl, kon, kon-tiki, museum, norway, oslo, peru, polynesia, raft, sail, sailing, ship, thor, tiki, town, vertical