Thor Heyerdahl - Oslo, Norway
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Metro2
N 59° 54.214 E 010° 41.895
32V E 594993 N 6641889
This sculpture of Thor Heyerdahl and his crew is located in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo.
Waymark Code: WMG95E
Location: Oslo, Norway
Date Posted: 01/31/2013
Views: 10
Thor Heyerdahl is the seated figure in this small sculpture. Located in the Kon-Tike Museum, next to the Ra II raft, this work is only about 2 foot tall. The bronze piece depicts American Norman Baker (standing left), Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl (sitting), Russian Yuri Sengevich and Italian Carlo Mauri. The four men were the crew of the Tigris which sailed through the Persian Gulf to Pakistan and made its way into the Red Sea.
The ragged sign seems to indicate that Sengevich is the sculptor.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us that Heyerdahl (October 6, 1914, Larvik, Norway – April 18, 2002, Colla Micheri, Italy) was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a self-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in 1947. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between apparently separate cultures. This was linked to a diffusionist model of cultural development. Heyerdahl subsequently made other voyages designed to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient peoples. He was appointed a government scholar in 1984.
In May 2011, the Thor Heyerdahl Archives were added to UNESCO's "Memory of the World" Register. At the time, this list included 238 collections from all over the world. The Heyerdahl Archives span the years 1937 to 2002 and include his photographic collection, diaries, private letters, expedition plans, articles, newspaper clippings, original book and article manuscripts. The Heyerdahl Archives are administered by the Kon-Tiki Museum and the National Library of Norway in Oslo."