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 8000 books. It was opened in a provisional building in 1949. In 1957, the current buildingâ€"designed by architects F. S. Platou and Otto Torgersenâ€"was opened. 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.
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.
References
External links
- Official website
