see page history
Overview edit
Bibliography
-
(1997)
Gr\c3\b8nn var orden pa den syvende dag. (English)
-
(1996)
Green Was the Earth on the Seventh Day
-
(1995)
Pyramids of Tucume: The Quest for Peru's Forgotten City
-
(1989)
Easter Island: The Mystery Solved
-
(1980)
The Tigris Expedition
Unbound edit
This content section has been deprecated.
Please help us clean up the page by moving the content from this section into other relevant sections. Once it has been emptied this section will no longer appear on the page but the edit history will still be available in the page's history.
Ethnologist and Adventurer Thor Heyerdahl became known to the world when he organized and led the famous KON - TIKI (1947) and RA (1969 - 70) transoceanic scientific expeditions. Both were intended to prove the possibility of ancient transoceanic contacts amongst distant civilizations and cultures
In the 1947 voyage of the primitive raft KON - TIKI Heyerdahl and his small crew sailed from the pacific coast of South America to Polynesia demonstrating the possibility that the Polynesians may have originated in South America. The story of the voyage was related in KON - TIKI and in a documentary motion picture of the same name
Heyerdahl's account of his other incredible expeditions include Aku - Aku: The Secret of Easter Island (1958), Fatu - Hiva: Back to Nature (1974); and Early Man and the Ocean: A search for the begining of Navigation and Seaborne Civilizations (1979)
Thor Hyerdrhal was born on October 6, 1914 the son of a prosperous and intellectual family in the city of Larvik Norway. His father, also Thor Hyerdhal, the president of a brewery and mineral water plant, infected his family with his extraordinary enthusiasm for skiing, hiking, hunting and fishing. His mother Alison Lyng Hyerdahl, had pursued scientific studies in folk art, zoology and the history of primitive races; her interest and accomplishments qualified her to serve as the chairman of the Larvik museum
After receiving his bachelor's degree from the Larvik gymnasium in 1933, young Thor Hyerdahl spent three and half years at the University of Oslo. He was a candidate for a graduate degree in Zoology; his studies were however much more varied than is usual for graduate students - mathematics, philosophy, genetics, geography, and Polynesian ethnology, together with Zoology his chosen field
On Christmas Eve 1936, Heyerdahl took a wife. He and his bride, planning to combine a romantic honeymoon with field research for his thesis, at once set off for Fatu Hiva, one of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. Like good scientists and true children of Romance, Thor and Liv Heyerdahl lived intimately with the Polynesians in a thorough going Polynesian style for the year and a half of their stay.
The young scientist collected beetle and fish, which he dutifully preserved in glass jars. In the course of his field trips, however he came upon ancient temples that had been overwhelmed by jungle growth. The red stone carvings he found there particularly fascinated him. Talking about his finds with his Polynesian friends gradually shifted his primary interest to anthropology, for which his university studies had partially prepared him.
In Kon - Tiki, Heyerdahl recounts the genesis of his theory of Polynesian origins. The theory is interesting enough to merit a brief summary
Native traditions combined with a striking lack of archeological evidence for earlier settlement, make it certain that the islands were peopled for the first time within the last fifteen hundred years
Where did the people come from? The Polynesians were a very high level stone age people, ignorant of metal craft, weaving, pottery manufacture, and the principle of the wheel, but nonetheless truly civilized. cultures like theirs existed to the east, in America, but were extinct throughout the rest of the world. Ocean currents and prevailing winds would have made east to west travel much more easier than travel in the opposite direction over shorter distances; what is more, both Peruvian rafts and British Columbian war canoes were capable of long sea voyages. Why might not the Polynesians come from America instead of Asia, the homeland supposed by almost all scholars?
Polynesian tradition confirms the Heyerdahl theory by speaking of the racial progenitors as coming from mountainous land to the east. Artifacts from Peru and British Columbia closely resemble Polynesian artifacts, and Polynesian legend includes many elements of the aborginal American folklore. Many cultivated plants in Polynesia are demonstrably of American origin. Physical similarities exists between the Polynesians and various American people, including a mysterioys white race attested both by tradition and archeology as havind laid the foundation of civilization in the Americas.
Heyerdahl returned to Norway and published a book about his South Sea island stay. After a year of library research in Oslo, he spent nearly three years doing library research in the United States and Canada and pursing Anthropological field studies in British Columbia. From 1942 until the end of World War II, he led a military life - first in the Free Nowregian Air Force, then in a special parachute unit, and finally as a lieutenanat in an invasion unit operating in the Arctic Norway
When published, Kon Tiki, in the highly praised translation by F H Lyon, was widely acclaimed as an adventure yarn, and even Heyerdahl himself had to admit that it did not prove his theories, only that a balsa raft could cross the Pacific and that Peru was not out of the question in considering east to west migration in ancient times
In 1958, Heyerdahl publihsed Aku Aku in an attempt to prove that the migration from Peru to the South Pacific did occur, the feasibility of which Kon Tiki had established. "Heyerdahl tells a story well as every reader of Kon Tiki knows," conceded the New York times, but once again fellow scientists begged to differ with the Noweregian's theories.
Heyerdahl was undaunted and studied ancient Egyptian tomb paintings to design a papyrus boat that might prove a theory of cultural migration from Egypt to South America. The boar (named Ra in honor of the ancient Sun god) was constructed on ancient lines at Gizah in 1969, dragged across the desert on primitive wooden tracks, taken to the harbor of Safi in Morocco by Modern
truck, and set sail on May 25, 1969 with Heyerdahl and a crew of six. After fifty six days, the Ra foundered because of improper loading, and the mission had to be aborted after sailing some 2700 of the 4000 miles to the projected landing in Yucatan
The ship was abandoned, but the theory was not.
With the determination that all readers of Kon Tiki expected, Heyerdahl constructed Ra II and in 1970 again sailed from Safi. This time the boat stayed afloat. He and a crew of eight reached Bridgetown in the Barbados after fifty seven days, proving (at least to their own satisfaction) that ancient Egyptians, perhaps blown of course by strong trade winds, had brought their highly developed culture to the Carribbean and Central America. Was this the way that such Egyptian knowledge as astronomy, surgery, mummification, pyramid building, and so on and such customs as marriage of royal brothers and sisters were brought to South and Central America? In search for the secrets of the past, the indomitable courage of our modern adventurers equals, and may some day explain, the exploits of their ancient predecessors
In the 1947 voyage of the primitive raft KON - TIKI Heyerdahl and his small crew sailed from the pacific coast of South America to Polynesia demonstrating the possibility that the Polynesians may have originated in South America. The story of the voyage was related in KON - TIKI and in a documentary motion picture of the same name
Heyerdahl's account of his other incredible expeditions include Aku - Aku: The Secret of Easter Island (1958), Fatu - Hiva: Back to Nature (1974); and Early Man and the Ocean: A search for the begining of Navigation and Seaborne Civilizations (1979)
Thor Hyerdrhal was born on October 6, 1914 the son of a prosperous and intellectual family in the city of Larvik Norway. His father, also Thor Hyerdhal, the president of a brewery and mineral water plant, infected his family with his extraordinary enthusiasm for skiing, hiking, hunting and fishing. His mother Alison Lyng Hyerdahl, had pursued scientific studies in folk art, zoology and the history of primitive races; her interest and accomplishments qualified her to serve as the chairman of the Larvik museum
After receiving his bachelor's degree from the Larvik gymnasium in 1933, young Thor Hyerdahl spent three and half years at the University of Oslo. He was a candidate for a graduate degree in Zoology; his studies were however much more varied than is usual for graduate students - mathematics, philosophy, genetics, geography, and Polynesian ethnology, together with Zoology his chosen field
On Christmas Eve 1936, Heyerdahl took a wife. He and his bride, planning to combine a romantic honeymoon with field research for his thesis, at once set off for Fatu Hiva, one of the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia. Like good scientists and true children of Romance, Thor and Liv Heyerdahl lived intimately with the Polynesians in a thorough going Polynesian style for the year and a half of their stay.
The young scientist collected beetle and fish, which he dutifully preserved in glass jars. In the course of his field trips, however he came upon ancient temples that had been overwhelmed by jungle growth. The red stone carvings he found there particularly fascinated him. Talking about his finds with his Polynesian friends gradually shifted his primary interest to anthropology, for which his university studies had partially prepared him.
In Kon - Tiki, Heyerdahl recounts the genesis of his theory of Polynesian origins. The theory is interesting enough to merit a brief summary
Native traditions combined with a striking lack of archeological evidence for earlier settlement, make it certain that the islands were peopled for the first time within the last fifteen hundred years
Where did the people come from? The Polynesians were a very high level stone age people, ignorant of metal craft, weaving, pottery manufacture, and the principle of the wheel, but nonetheless truly civilized. cultures like theirs existed to the east, in America, but were extinct throughout the rest of the world. Ocean currents and prevailing winds would have made east to west travel much more easier than travel in the opposite direction over shorter distances; what is more, both Peruvian rafts and British Columbian war canoes were capable of long sea voyages. Why might not the Polynesians come from America instead of Asia, the homeland supposed by almost all scholars?
Polynesian tradition confirms the Heyerdahl theory by speaking of the racial progenitors as coming from mountainous land to the east. Artifacts from Peru and British Columbia closely resemble Polynesian artifacts, and Polynesian legend includes many elements of the aborginal American folklore. Many cultivated plants in Polynesia are demonstrably of American origin. Physical similarities exists between the Polynesians and various American people, including a mysterioys white race attested both by tradition and archeology as havind laid the foundation of civilization in the Americas.
Heyerdahl returned to Norway and published a book about his South Sea island stay. After a year of library research in Oslo, he spent nearly three years doing library research in the United States and Canada and pursing Anthropological field studies in British Columbia. From 1942 until the end of World War II, he led a military life - first in the Free Nowregian Air Force, then in a special parachute unit, and finally as a lieutenanat in an invasion unit operating in the Arctic Norway
When published, Kon Tiki, in the highly praised translation by F H Lyon, was widely acclaimed as an adventure yarn, and even Heyerdahl himself had to admit that it did not prove his theories, only that a balsa raft could cross the Pacific and that Peru was not out of the question in considering east to west migration in ancient times
In 1958, Heyerdahl publihsed Aku Aku in an attempt to prove that the migration from Peru to the South Pacific did occur, the feasibility of which Kon Tiki had established. "Heyerdahl tells a story well as every reader of Kon Tiki knows," conceded the New York times, but once again fellow scientists begged to differ with the Noweregian's theories.
Heyerdahl was undaunted and studied ancient Egyptian tomb paintings to design a papyrus boat that might prove a theory of cultural migration from Egypt to South America. The boar (named Ra in honor of the ancient Sun god) was constructed on ancient lines at Gizah in 1969, dragged across the desert on primitive wooden tracks, taken to the harbor of Safi in Morocco by Modern
truck, and set sail on May 25, 1969 with Heyerdahl and a crew of six. After fifty six days, the Ra foundered because of improper loading, and the mission had to be aborted after sailing some 2700 of the 4000 miles to the projected landing in Yucatan
The ship was abandoned, but the theory was not.
With the determination that all readers of Kon Tiki expected, Heyerdahl constructed Ra II and in 1970 again sailed from Safi. This time the boat stayed afloat. He and a crew of eight reached Bridgetown in the Barbados after fifty seven days, proving (at least to their own satisfaction) that ancient Egyptians, perhaps blown of course by strong trade winds, had brought their highly developed culture to the Carribbean and Central America. Was this the way that such Egyptian knowledge as astronomy, surgery, mummification, pyramid building, and so on and such customs as marriage of royal brothers and sisters were brought to South and Central America? In search for the secrets of the past, the indomitable courage of our modern adventurers equals, and may some day explain, the exploits of their ancient predecessors
