2014-10-06

Thor Heyerdahl – Thor Heyerdahl; October 6, 1914 – April 18, 2002

Thor Heyerdahl; October 6, 1914 – April 18, 2002) was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer using a background in zoology, botany, and location. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) throughout the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built host from South America for the Tuamotu Islands. The journey was designed to show that ancient people could have made long ocean voyages, making connections between individual cultures. It was connected to a diffusionist model of cultural development. Other trips made to demonstrate the likelihood of contact between widely separated old people were subsequently made by Heyerdahl. He was appointed a government student in 1984.



Thor Heyerdahl – Life of Thor Heyerdahl

In May 2011, the Thor Heyerdahl Records were included with UNESCO’s “Memory of the World” Register.[1] At the time, this list included 238 collections from all over the world.[2] The Heyerdahl Archives cover the years 1937 to 2002 and can include his final collection, diaries, personal words, journey programs, articles, newspaper clippings, unique book, and report manuscripts. The Heyerdahl Archives are implemented from the Kon-Tiki Museum along with the National Library of Norway in Oslo.

Writer, Educational, Archaeologist, Explorer (1914–2002)

Name

Thor Heyerdahl

Occupation

Author, Academic, Archaeologist, Explorer

Birthdate

1914, October 6

Death Date

2002, April 18

Education

Oslo University

Place of Birth

Norway, Larvik

Location of Death

Colla Micheri, Italy

Synopsis

Voyage of Kon-Tiki

Later Trips

Final Years

Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl built a famed voyage aboard a host named Kon-Tiki in 1947, and published an international best-seller about his amazing trip.

“We seem to believe that the water is unlimited, but we use it just like a sewer.”

—Thor Heyerdahl

Born in 1914, Thor Heyerdahl was raised in Norway. He visited Oslo University. In 1936, Heyerdahl went to live on the Pacific area of Fatu Hiva. He made his world-renowned journey from Peru to French Polynesia aboard the Kon Tiki in 1947. His book about that venture became an international hit. Two years later, he moved to Easter Island. In his old age, Heyerdahl excavated pyramids in Peru along with the Canary Islands. He died in 2002.

Created on October 6, 1914, in Larvik, Norway, Thor Heyerdahl was a vital adventurer and archaeologist. He was the brewery’s only child and mineral water plant leader and a museum director. He sought out “on treks having a Greenland dog, braving storms and resting inside the snow just to confirm that I can do things.”

Heyerdahl’s interest in technology may have already been planted by his mother during his early years. “My mother brought me up on development in place of Norwegian fairy tales and Darwin,” he once discussed, based on the Washington Post. He later studied zoology at Oslo University. Within the Pacific, Heyerdahl moved for the island of Fatu Hiva, part of the Marquesan archipelago, in 1936. He was followed by his first wife, as well as the couple spent per year studying the indigenous plants and animals and living off the land. He started more interested in cultural anthropology than zoology while there.

He offered following the conflict to cultural anthropology, trying to confirm that individuals of Polynesia had ancestral ties to the ancient Peruvians. This theory went against all prevailing scientific thought at that time, which held that individuals from South Asia used the islands.

To prove his idea, Heyerdahl enlisted five friends to join him on an amazing journey. He developed Kon-Tiki, an about 40-foot log number from balsa wood, just like those used in ancient times. On April 28, 1947, Heyerdahl and his team left Peru, Callao. Throughout their dangerous travel, his staff and Heyerdahl experienced even interested sharks, sharks and rough waters while covering about 4,300 miles.

A skilled storyteller, Heyerdahl wrote about his experiences within the bestselling book Kon Tiki. The work was a global reach and was converted into 65 languages. A documentary about the trip also won an Academy Award in 1951. Heyerdahl found himself from your medical community for his journey under fire although hugely popular with the public. It was widely believed that Heyerdahl’s aquatic adventure did little to determine his statements concerning the cultural ancestry of Polynesia.

In 1953, Heyerdahl led an archaeological expedition to the Galapagos Islands. There, he found pottery that linked and Peruvian Indian cultures and the countries. This journey became the basis for your 1958 book The Secret of Easter Island.

Returning to the sea, Heyerdahl tried to show the ancient Egyptians could have sailed for the Americas. He designed the ship Ra—named after the Egyptian solar god—out of papyrus. While that work failed, he managed to ensure it is from Morocco the next year towards the Bahamas in Ra II.

Within the late 1980s, Heyerdahl aimed his focus about the Tucume pyramid complex. He resolved chart excavation within the 1990s around the Spanish area of Tenerife, while in the Canary Islands. The step pyramids he found now make the Chacona Pyramid Ethnological Park up there.

Among Heyerdahl’s remaining tasks was discovering the theory that the Norse god Odin was, in fact, a genuine ruler. He sponsored an attempt to find evidence to guide his idea through historical research in southern Russia, and subsequently published The Hunt for Odin (2001).

Heyerdahl underwent surgery as part of his treatment for cancer, that same year. The operation didn’t stop the spread of the condition. From the following March, he was inside battling brain cancer and the clinic. Heyerdahl died on April 18, 2002, at his house in Colla Micheri, Italy. He was 87 yrs old.

While he never received honors from his medical friends, Heyerdahl was considered a number one figure in his native Norway. He also became a global folk hero for his many activities.

Thor Heyerdahl 100th birthday: Google Doodle remembers traveler who headed the Kon-Tiki expedition

Norwegian ethnographer and explorer came to be on 6 October in 1914

Google has used its latest animated webpage doodle to enjoy Norwegian ethnographer explorer Thor Heyerdahl’s life, best known for leading the Kon Tiki expedition of 1947, who was created with this morning in 1914.

The idea of the journey was to travel over a number built using components and technology that would happen to be offered to pre-Colombian Americans, i.e. those living on the nation prior to the birth of Europeans, headed by Christopher Columbus, in 1492.

People found it difficult to believe that such distances could be protected using such standard vessels. The voyage was effective, with the Kon-Tiki making landfall in the Tuamoto Islands on 7 August 1947, 101 days after setting sail.

Google Doodles

The doodle also shows a moai, one of the big sculptures found on Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, which Heyerdahl visited on an archaeological expedition from 1955-6. He was excited to confirm the area were satisfied in the east as opposed to the west. DNA testing has not largely copied Heyerdahl’s theories.

Heyerdahl studied location and zoology in the University of Oslo, while studying Polynesian culture in his free time and was born in Larvik in southern Norway. He fought throughout the Next World War with all the Free Norwegian Causes, following a Nazi occupation of the country. He married 3 times, and died in 2002.

Heyerdahl’s trips made him one of the most famous anthropologists on the planet, producing numerous publications that became huge-retailers, and building a 1951 documentary film regarding the Kon-Tiki expedition, which went on get an Academy Award. The story was adapted again in to a feature film in Norway in 2012, that has been both country’s priciest and best-grossing film.

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Youth and personal life

Heyerdahl was created in the son of master brewer Thor Heyerdahl Larvik, Norway and his wife, Alison Lyng. Being a youngster, Heyerdahl revealed a solid interest in zoology. He produced a little public in his childhood home, having a common adder (Vipera berus) because the main attraction. He studied zoology and landscape at the university of natural science in the University of Oslo.[3] in The same period, he independently studied Polynesian culture and record, asking what was then the world’s largest private collection of books and documents on Polynesia, held by Bjarne Kropelien, a rich wine merchant in Oslo. (This series was later acquired from the University of Oslo Catalogue from Kropelien’s heirs and was mounted on the Kon Tiki Museum research team.) After seven terms and consultations with experts in Berlin, Heyerdahl’s zoology professors, Kristine Bonnevie and Hjalmar Broch developed and paid a project. He was to see some isolated Pacific island groups and review how a local animals had found their way there.

Right before sailing together to the Marquesas Islands in 1936, Heyerdahl committed his first wife, Liv Coucheron-Torp (1916–1969), whom he had achieved shortly before registering in the school, and who had studied economics there. The pair had two daughters; Bjørn and Thor Jr. The marriage ended in divorce.

After the Career of Norway by Nazi Germany he served with all the Free Norwegian Forces while in the far north land of Finnmark.[4][5], from 1944

In 1949 Heyerdahl married Yvonne Dedekam-Simonsen (1924–2006). They had three kids: Helene, Marian and Annette Elisabeth. They were separated in 1969. Heyerdahl charged their separation on his being away from home and differences in their ideas for bringing up children. In his autobiography, he concluded that he should get the complete fault because of their separation.[6]

In 1991, Heyerdahl married Jacqueline Beer (born 1932) as his third wife. Before he died. he still have been expecting to undertake a historical project in Samoa [7]

The Norwegian government gave him a state funeral in Oslo Cathedral on April 26, 2002. He is buried within the yard of the family house in Colla Micheri.[8]
Fatu Hiva

The events surrounding his remain on the Marquesas, most of the time-on Fatu Hiva, were informed first in his book På Jakt etter Paradiset (look for Paradise) (1938), which was published in Norway but, after the episode of World War II, never converted and largely ignored. Several years later, having achieved notability with different ventures and publications on different subjects, Heyerdahl published a brand new account of this travel beneath the title Fatu Hiva (London: Allen & Unwin, 1974). The story of his time-on Fatu Hiva and his side-trip to Hivaoa and Mohotani can be associated in Green Was Our Planet on the Seventh Day (Random House, 1996).

Kon tiki expedition

Main article: Kon-Tiki

From Peru, five fellow adventurers and Heyerdahl sailed in 1947 to the Tuamotus, French Polynesia, in a pae-pae host they constructed from balsa wood and other local materials, and christened the Kon Tiki. The Kon-Tiki expedition was motivated by previous reports and images created by the Spanish Conquistadors of Inca rafts, and by indigenous stories and archaeological evidence indicating contact between Polynesia and South America. On August 7, 1947, following a 101-day, 4,300 nautical mile (4,948 miles or 7,964 km)[9] voyage throughout the Pacific Ocean, the Kon Tiki left to the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands. Heyerdahl, who had nearly drowned at the least in childhood and did not take quickly to water, explained later that there were instances in each of his raft trips when he feared for his life.[10]

Kon tiki demonstrated that it was feasible for a simple host to travel the Pacific with relative ease and safety, especially for the west (with all the trade winds). The raft turned out to be highly maneuverable, and fish congregated involving the eight balsa logs in such figures that old sailors might have probably counted on catch hydration while in the absence of different resources of fresh water. Inspired by Kon Tiki, other rafts have repeated the trip. Heyerdahl’s book about the expedition, The Kon-Tiki Expedition: By Raft Throughout The South Seas, has been converted into 70 languages.[11] The documentary film of the expedition , itself called Kon-Tiki, gained an Academy Award in 1951. A dramatised version premiered in 2012, also known as Kon-Tiki, and was selected for both the Best Foreign Language Oscar in the 85th Academy Awards[12] as well as a Golden Globe Award for Best Language Film at the 70th Golden Globe Awards.[13] It is the first time a Norwegian film has been nominated for both an Oscar plus a Wonderful Globe.[14]

Anthropologists continue to trust, predicated on linguistic, physical, and genetic evidence, that Polynesia was settled from west migration, to east having started from your Asian mainland. There are questionable symptoms, though, of some sort of South American/Polynesian contact, such as within the fact that the South American sweet potato is offered as being a dietary staple throughout a lot of Polynesia. Blood samples used 1971 and 2008 from Easter Islanders with no European or other external descent were analysed in an 2011 review, which concluded that the data supported some aspects of Heyerdahl’s hypothesis.[15][16][17] However, this result has been questioned due to the chance for disease by South Americans after European connection with the countries. [18] Heyerdahl experimented with counter the linguistic controversy together with the example that, guessing the origin of African-Americans, he would choose to consider that they came from Africa, judging from their skin colour, and not from England, judging from their conversation.

Heyerdahl said that in Incan legend there is a sun god called Con-Tici Viracocha who was the great head of the legendary fair skinned people in Peru. The initial title for Viracocha was Kon- Illa or Tiki -Tiki, this means Sun- Tiki or Flame -Tiki. Kon-Tiki was sun and high priest -master of the celebrated “white guys” who left great damages about the shores of Lake Titicaca. The story continues with all the mysterious bearded white males being attacked with a chief called Cari who originated from the Coquimbo Valley. They had a fight on an area in Lake Titicaca, along with the good race was massacred. However, Kon Tiki and his closest buddies managed to escape and later appeared around the Pacific coast. The story ends with Kon-Tiki his companions and disappearing westward out to sea.

Heyerdahl asserted, if the Spaniards found Peru, the Incas told them the large monuments that stood abandoned regarding the landscape were assembled with a battle of bright gods who had lived there prior to the Incas themselves became rulers. The Incas described these “white gods” as sensible, peaceful instructors who’d originally result from the north within the “day of time” and taught the Incas’ ancient forebears architecture along with manners and methods. These were unlike other Native Americans in that they’d ” long beards and white cases ” and were bigger than the Incas. The Incas said that the “bright gods” had then left as suddenly as they had come and fled across the Pacific. Once they had left, the Incas took over-power in the country.

Heyerdahl stated that when the Europeans found the Pacific islands, these were astonished which they discovered several of the residents to have beards and fairly mild skins. There have been complete families that had soft skin, hair numerous in color from red to blonde. In comparison, all of the Polynesians had gold-brown skin, raven-dark hair, and relatively flat noses. Heyerdahl claimed that after Jakob Roggeveen first discovered Easter Island in 1722, he apparently pointed out that many of the residents were white-skinned. Heyerdahl stated these individuals can count their ancestors have been “white-skinned” right-back for the moment of Tiki and Hotu Matua, if they first came sailing across the beach “from a mountainous territory in the east that was scorched from the sun.” The ethnographic data for these claims is discussed in Heyerdahl’s book Aku Aku: The Secret of Easter Island.

Heyerdahl proposed that the neolithic people of Tiki colonized the then-uninhabited Polynesian islands as far north as Hawaii, as far south as New Zealand, as far east as Easter Island, and as far west around 500 AD as Tonga and Samoa. They supposedly sailed from Peru to the Polynesian islands on pae – paes—large rafts designed from balsa logs, complete with sails and each using a little cottage. They created the Marquesas great stone sculptures created inside the picture of people on Pitcairn, and Easter Island that resembled those in Peru. They also built enormous pyramids on Tahiti and Samoa with measures like those in Peru. But allover Polynesia, Heyerdahl found indications that the peaceable race of Tiki hadn’t been able to put on the islands for long. He found evidence that recommended that seagoing war canoes as large as Viking boats and lashed together two and two had introduced Stone Age Northwest American Indians to Polynesia around 1100 AD, and so they mingled with Tiki’s people. The oral history of the folks of Easter Island, at least as it was noted by Heyerdahl, is totally consistent with this idea, as is the historical record he examined (Heyerdahl 1958). Specifically, Heyerdahl obtained a radiocarbon date of 400 AD for a charcoal fire positioned in the gap which was used by the folks of Easter Island to have been used as an “range” from the “Long Ears,” which Heyerdahl’s Rapa Nui solutions, saying oral history, recognized as a white race which had led the area before (Heyerdahl 1958).

Heyerdahl further argued in his book American Indians within the Pacific the current inhabitants of Polynesia migrated from an Asian origin, but via another route. He suggests that Polynesians sailed with the wind across the North Pacific current. These migrants then appeared in British Columbia. Heyerdahl called modern tribes of British Columbia, including the Tlingit and Haida, descendants of those migrants. Heyerdahl stated that national and physical characteristics existed between these British Columbian tribes, Polynesians, along with the Oldworld source. Heyerdahl’s claims aside there’s no evidence that the Tlingit, Haida or other British Columbian tribes have an affinity with Polynesians.

Heyerdahl’s idea of Polynesian roots have not gained popularity among anthropologists.[19][20][21] Real and cultural data had long suggested that Polynesia was settled from west migration, to east having begun in the Asian mainland, not South America. While in the late 1990s, genetic testing found that the Polynesians’ mitochondrial DNA is more similar to folks from southeast Asia than to individuals from South America, demonstrating that their ancestors most likely originated in Asia.[22]

A recent study by Norwegian researcher Erik Thorsby implies that there’s some value to Heyerdahl’s tips which while Polynesia was colonized from Asia, some experience of South America also existed.[23][24] Some experts suggest, however, that Thorsby’s investigation is pending because his data may have already been influenced by recent population contact.[25]

Anthropologist Robert Carl Suggs included a section entitled “The Kon-Tiki Fantasy” in his book on Polynesia, deciding that “The Kon-Tiki hypothesis is about as plausible while Atlantis, Mu, and ‘Kids of the Sun’s stories.’ Similar to such theories it generates exciting light reading, but for example of scientific process it deals fairly poorly.”[26]

Anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Wade Davis also criticised Heyerdahl’s concept in his book The Wayfinders, which considers the history of Polynesia. Davis says that Heyerdahl “ignored the overwhelming body of linguistic, ethnographic, and ethnobotanical research, augmented by genetic and archaeological knowledge, indicating that he was “[27]
In 1955–1956, Heyerdahl prepared the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Rapa Nui (Easter Island). The medical staff of the trip included Arne Skjølsvold, Carlyle Smith, Edwin Ferdon, Gonzalo Figueroa[28] and William Mulloy. Heyerdahl and the professional archaeologists who traveled with him used several months on Rapa Nui examining several important archaeological sites. Features of the project include move and erection trials within the carving of the significant moai, in addition to excavations at such prominent sites as Poike and Orongo. Heyerdahl’s popular book on the subject, Aku-Aku was another global best-seller.

Based on native testimony and historical research, he believed the area was formerly colonized by Hanau eepe (“Long Ears”), from South America, and that Polynesians Hanau momoko (“Short Ears”) appeared only in the middle-16th century; they may have come alone or perhaps were imported as employees. According to Heyerdahl, something happened between Admiral Roggeveen’s discovery of the island in 1722 and James Cook’s visit in 1774; while Roggeveen encountered white, Indian, and Polynesian people living in relative harmony and success, Cook experienced a much smaller population consisting primarily of Polynesians and living in privation.

Heyerdahl notes the oral tradition of an uprising of “Short Ears” against the ruling “Long Ears.” The “Long Ears” finished a defensive moat about the eastern end of the area and packed it with kindling. Throughout the uprising, Heyerdahl said, the “Long Ears” ignited their moat and retreated behind it, but the “Short Ears” observed a way around it, came up from behind, and shoved all-but two of the “Long Ears” to the fire. the Norwegian trip discovered this moat also it was partially cut down into the rock. Layers of fire was exposed but no parts of bodies. As for the foundation of the people of Easter Island today (2013) DNA-checks show a total contract with people from the Pacific and no connection to South America. When the history that each one (almost) long-ears were killed in a civil war, this is what to be anticipated if their bloodline was completely destroyed. New (2006?) examination indicates records to South America from some proteins, but whether that is inherited from a person to arrive later times is hard to know.

Boats Ra and Ra II

Ra II within the Kon-Tiki Museum

In 1970 and 1969, Heyerdahl built two boats from papyrus and experimented with mix the Atlantic Ocean from Morocco in Africa. The Ra crew involved Thor Heyerdahl (Norway), Norman Baker (USA), Carlo Mauri (Italy), Yuri Senkevich (USSR), Santiago Genoves (Mexico), Georges Sourial (Egypt) and Abdullah Djibrine (Chad). Only Heyerdahl and Baker had sailing and navigation experiences. Following a number of months, Ra needed on water after its crew made changes for the boat that caused it break apart after sailing more than 4000 miles and to drop. a yacht was forced to reject Ra some hundred miles before Caribbean countries and saved the team.

Ra II, these year, 1970, another similar vessel, was developed from Lake Titicaca in Bolivia by Juan, Demetrio and Jose Limachi of totora basically set sail across the Atlantic from Morocco, now with great success. The team was mainly the exact same; only Djibrine was replaced Madani Ait Ouhanni from Morocco and by Kei Ohara from Japan. The vessel reached Barbados, thus indicating that mariners could have managed transatlantic trips by sailing using the Canary Current.[29]

The book The Ra Expeditions and the video documentary Ra (1972) were made about the voyages. Independent of the major aspects of the adventure, Heyerdahl intentionally chosen a staff representing a great diversity in battle, nationality, religion and political viewpoint to be able to show that at the least independently little flying island, people might work and live . Additionally, the journey took samples of marine pollution and introduced their report for the United Nations.[30]
Tigris

Type of the Tigris in the Pyramids of Güímar, Tenerife.

Heyerdahl built another reed boat, Tigris, that was intended to show that migration and deal might have connected Mesopotamia with all the Indus Valley Culture in what is now Pakistan. Tigris was built in Iraq and sailed to Pakistan through the Persian Gulf using its international crew and built its way into the Red Sea. After about five months at sea but still remaining seaworthy, the Tigris was deliberately burnt on April 3, 1978, being a protest from the battles raging on every part in the Red Sea and Horn of Africa, in Djibouti. In his Open Letter for the UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, he explained his reasons:[31]

Today our proud ship burns… to protest against inhuman things on the planet of 1978… Now we’re forced to avoid at the entry towards the Red Sea. Surrounded by military planes and warships in the world’s most civil and developed nations, friendly governments have denied us approval, for causes of stability, to property anywhere, however in the still simple, and little, Republic of Djibouti. Elsewhere around us, siblings and neighbors are employed in murder with means distributed around them by those that lead humanity on our joint path into the next millennium.

Towards the simple people in every industrialized nations, we direct our appeal. We should get up for the crazy reality of our time… We’re all irresponsible, unless we need in the sensible decisionmakers that modern armaments should nolonger be distributed around people whose former battle axes and swords our ancestors bound.

Our world is larger than the reed programs which have carried us across the seas, and yet small enough to perform the same hazards except those folks still alive open our eyes and brains to the desperate need of intelligent effort to preserve ourselves and our common civilization from what we’re about to transform into a sinking ship.

In the years that followed, Heyerdahl was often outspoken on issues of the environment and global peace.

“The look for Odin” in Russia and Azerbaijan

Heyerdahl made four visits to Azerbaijan in 1981,[32] 1994, 1999 and 2000.[33] Heyerdahl had been attracted to the rock carvings that date back to about 8th-7th millennia BCE at Gobustan (about thirty miles west of Baku). He was convinced that their creative style closely resembles the carvings within his native Norway. Heyerdahl related, in particular, deemed the vessel designs and driven with straight lines on deck, showing team, addressing the bottom of the vessel, using a basic sickle–shaped lines or, maybe, raised oars.

Centered on this as well as other printed documentation, Heyerdahl proposed that Azerbaijan was your website of an old advanced civilization. He assumed residents migrated north through pathways to provide-day Scandinavia applying ingeniously built boats manufactured from themes that might be folded like fabric. Their skin boats conveniently folded and transferred them via pack animals, when upstream traveled.

Regarding the history of ancient Nordic Leaders, he lectured at the Academy of Sciences on Heyerdahl’s trip to Baku in 1999. He spoke of the notation produced by Snorri Sturluson, a 13th century historian-mythographer in Ynglinga Saga which applies that “Odin (a Scandinavian god who was among the kings) stumbled on the North along with his people from a state called Aser.”[34] (see also Home of Ynglings and Legendary kings of Sweden). Heyerdahl thought a chieftain led his people in a migration in the east, northward through Saxony, to Fyn in Denmark, and eventually settling in Sweden and westward, and accepted the tale of Snorri as literal fact. Heyerdahl said the geographic area of the mythic Aser or Æsir matched the region of modern Azerbaijan – “east of the Caucasus mountains as well as the Black Sea”. “We are no longer speaking about mythology,” Heyerdahl said, “but of the facts of history and geography. Azerbaijanis should be proud of their ancient tradition. It’s ancient and not just like poor as that of China and Mesopotamia.”

One of the last tasks of his life, Jakten på Odin, ‘The Search for Odin’, was a quick modification of his Odin hypothesis, in furtherance that he started 2001–2002 excavations in Azov, Russia, close to the Ocean of Azov in the northeast of the Black Sea.[35] He looked for the remains of a civilization to match the bill of Odin in Snorri Sturlusson, a great deal north of his original goal of Azerbaijan about the Caspian Sea only two years earlier. This project created claims and harsh criticism of pseudoscience from archaeologists historians and linguists in Norway, who charged Heyerdahl of selective usage of solutions, along with a basic insufficient scientific method in his work.[36][37]

His key states were predicated on similarities of names in Norse mythology and geographical names within the Black Sea region, e.g. Azov and Æsir, Udi and Odin, Tyr and Turkey. Philologists and historians deny these parallels as mere coincidences, and also anachronisms, for instance the city of Azov did not have that name until over 1000 years after Heyerdahl claims the Æsir dwelt there. The controversy surrounding the Search for Odin project was in lots of ways typical of the partnership between Heyerdahl along with the academic community. His theories rarely gained any clinical endorsement, whereas Heyerdahl himself denied all scientific criticism and concentrated on publishing his concepts in popular books aimed at the general public[citation needed].

As of 2012, Heyerdahl’s Odin speculation has yet to become confirmed archaeologist, by any historian or linguist.

Other projects

Heyerdahl also examined the mounds found within the Indian Ocean on the Maldive Islands. There, he identified sun-oriented foundations and courtyards, along with sculptures with elongated earlobes. Heyerdahl believed these finds match his theory of the seafaring civilization which started the cultures of historic South America and Easter Island or affected, and originated in what is now Sri Lanka, colonized the Maldives. His discoveries are detailed in his book, “The Maldive Mystery.”

In 1991 he reported they weren’t random stone heaps but pyramids and learned the Pyramids of Güímar on Tenerife. In line with the discovery produced by the astrophysicists Aparicio, Belmonte and Esteban, in the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias that the “pyramids” were astronomically oriented and being convinced that they were of ancient origin, he claimed that the old individuals who developed them were almost certainly sun worshipers. Heyerdahl advanced a theory in accordance with which the Canaries was bases of old shipping between the Mediterranean and America.

Heyerdahl was also an active number in Green politics. He was the person of awards and several medals. He also received 11 honorary doctorates from universities within Europe and the Americas.

Death

In future years, Heyerdahl was a part of a great many other expeditions and archaeological projects. He kept best known for his boat-building, as well as for his emphasis on cultural diffusionism. He died from the brain tumor. After receiving the examination he prepared for dying by refusing to consume or take medication.[38] The Norwegian authorities granted Heyerdahl the recognition of the state burial in the Oslo Cathedral on April 26, 2002. His cremated remains lie in Colla Micheri within the yard of his family’s property.

Legacy

Quote on borders next to the KonTiki museum in Oslo

Heyerdahl’s expeditions were amazing and found the public imagination. Public interest increased in ancient history and anthropology although a lot of his work remains unaccepted within the medical community. He also demonstrated that cross country ocean voyages were possible with ancient designs. Therefore, he was a significant specialist of experimental archaeology. He introduced the areas of archaeology and ethnology and viewers of all ages.

In 1954 William Willis sailed alone from Peru to American Samoa to the tiny number Seven Little Sisters.

Kantuta Trips, repeated expeditions of Kon Tiki by Eduard Ingris.

Olav Heyerdahl, Heyerdahl’s son, retraced his grandmother’s Kon-Tiki voyage in 2006 included in a six -member crew. The trip, arranged by Torgeir Higraff and named the Tangaroa Expedition,[39] was meant as a tribute to Heyerdahl, an attempt to better understand navigation via centerboards (“guara[40]“) as well as an effective way to observe the Pacific Ocean’s environment.

A guide regarding the Tangaroa Trip[41] by Torgeir Higraff was published in 2007. The book has numerous images from the Kon-Tiki expedition 60 years earlier and is shown with images by Tangaroa crew member Anders Berg (Oslo: Bazar Forlag, 2007). “Tangaroa Adventure” in addition has been produced as a documentary DVD in Language, Norwegian, Swedish and Spanish.

The Thor Heyerdahl Institute was established in 2000. Heyerdahl himself consented to the institute’s founding plus continue to develop Heyerdahl’s ideas and rules and it seeks to promote. The start is located in Heyerdahl’s birth area in Larvik, Norway.

In 2007, the town began a task the birthplace of Heyerdahl, in Larvik to attract more visitors. Since then, they’ve ordered and renovated Heyerdahl’s childhood home, established a yearly raft regatta by the end of summer in his honor and started to produce a Heyerdahl centre.[42]

Paul Theroux, in his book Oceania’s Happy Isles, criticizes Heyerdahl for attempting to link the culture of Polynesian islands with the Peruvian culture. However, current scientific study that compares the DNA of a few of the Polynesian islands with locals from Peru shows that there is some value to Heyerdahl’s ideas and that while Polynesia was colonized from Asia, some contact with South America also existed.[23][24]

Dubai College, an unbiased British school in Dubai, named one of the homes Heyerdahl of the university. Other school house names for Dubai Faculty include all surnames of famous people, Barbarossa, Chichester and Cousteau.

Google honored Heyerdahl on his 100th birthday by making a Google Doodle. [43]

Decorations and honorary degrees

Tenerife, Güímar.

Asteroid 2473 Heyerdahl is called after him, as are HNoMS Thor Heyerdahl, a Norwegian Nansen class frigate, along with MS Thor Heyerdahl (now renamed MS Vana Tallinn) and Thor Heyerdahl, a German three-masted sail training vessel actually held by a person of the Tigris expedition. Thor Heyerdahl Upper Secondary School in Larvik, the city of his delivery, can also be named after him.

Awards and Heyerdahl’s numerous awards include the following:

Governmental and state honors

Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Purchase of St Olav (1987) (Leader with Star: 1970; Commander: 1951)[44]
Grand Cross of the Purchase of Worth of Peru (1953)[44]
Grand Officer of the Purchase of Advantage of the Italian Republic (21 June 1965)[44][45]
Knight in the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem[46]
Knight of the Purchase of Value, Egypt (1971)[44]
Grand Officer of the Purchase of Ouissam Alaouite (Morocco; 1971)

Officer, Order of the Sun (Peru) (1975) and Knight Grand Cross

International Pahlavi Environment Prize, Un (1978)[44]
Knight of the Purchase of the Golden Ark, Netherlands (1980)[44]
Leader, American Knights of Malta (1970)[44]
Austrian Decoration for Science and Craft (2000)[48]
The Medal of St. Hallvard

Academic honors

Retzius Honor, Royal Swedish Society for Anthropology and Landscape (1950)[44]
Mungo Park Medal, Royal Scottish Society for Landscape (1951)[44]
Honorary Member, Geographical Communities of Norway (1953), Peru (1953), Brazil (1954)[44]
Fellow, New York Academy of Sciences (1960)[44]
Vega Gold Medal, Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geography (1962)[44]
Lomonosov Medal, Moscow State University (1962)[44]
Member American Anthropological Association (1966)[44]
Kiril i Metodi Award, Geographical Society, Bulgaria (1972)[44]
Bradford Washburn Award, Public of Technology, Boston, USA, (1982)[44]
President’s Honor, Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, USA (1996)[44]
Honorary degrees

Doctor Honoris Causa, University of Oslo, Norway (1961)[44]
Doctor Honoris Causa, USSR Academy of Technology (1980)[44]
Categories:

1914 births

2002 deaths

Folks from Larvik

Norwegian Army personnel of World War II

Norwegian documentary filmmakers

Norwegian explorers

Norwegian scientists

Norwegian historians

Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact

Reed boats

Replications of ancient voyages

Deaths from brain tumor

Cancer deaths in Italy

People of Letters and Research of the Norwegian Academy

Norwegian ethnographers

Knights Grand Cross of St. Olav’s Order

Grand Officers of Benefit of the Italian Republic’s Order

Grand Officers of the Order of Ouissam Alaouite (Morocco)

Grand Cross of the Purchase of the Sun (Peru)

People for Art and Science of the Austrian Decoration

People of the Medal of St. Hallvard

People of the Purchase of Value (Egypt)

Knights of the Order of St John

Thor Heyerdahl

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Thor Heyerdahl

Thor Heyerdahl Author, Educational, Archaeologist, Explorer (1914–2002)

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