The Kon-Tiki Museum (Norwegian: Kon-Tiki Museet) is a museum in the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo, Norway. It houses vessels and maps from the Kon-Tiki expedition, as well as a library with about 8,000 books.[1] It was opened in a provisional building in 1949. In 1957, the current building—designed by architects F. S. Platou and Otto Torgersen—was opened.[2] In 1978, an extension of the museum designed by Torgersen was opened.
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. Heyerdahl sailed the Ra II from North Africa to the Caribbean after a previous attempt with the reed boat Ra failed.[3]
Beneath the raft is a model of the whale shark that the crew encountered on the voyage.[3]
The Kon-Tiki Museum is situated near several other museums including the Fram Museum, the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, the Viking Ship Museum and the Norwegian Maritime Museum.
- ^ "Om Museet" (in Norwegian). Kon-Tiki Museum. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
oblwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b "Kon-tiki Museum: About the museum".