COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Artifacts and human remains taken by a Norwegian explorer and anthropologist in the late 1940s are being returned by a museum in Oslo to Chile’s remote territory of Easter Island in the mid-Pacific , the Kon-Tiki Museum said Wednesday. In 1947, explorer Thor Heyerdahl sailed on a log raft named Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia in 101 days to prove his theory — that the South Sea Islands were settled by seafarers from South America . He brought 5,600 objects back from Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui.
This is the third time objects taken by him are being returned. Many have been stored and displayed at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway's capital, and some were given back in 1986 and others 2006. The return has been a collaboration between the museum, Chile and Rapa Nui's local authorities.
"My grandfather would have been proud of what we are about to achieve,” said Liv Heyerdahl, head of the museum and the explorer's granddaughter. She told the Norwegian news agency NTB that the objects were brought to Norway "with a promise that they would one day be returned.” Among those that are being returned this time around are human remains called Ivi Tepuna and sculpted stones.
A nine-person delegation had traveled to Norway this week to collect the items. Four of them spent the night at the Oslo museum, alongside the remains as part of a ritual ceremony to take back the spirits of the remains. “First one must awaken the spirits, and then speak t.
