Kon-Tiki Museum Kon-Tiki Museum The Kon-Tiki Museum () 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 building—designed by architects F. S. Platou and Otto Torgersen—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.
Kon-Tiki expedition Kon-Tiki expedition The "Kon-Tiki" expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named "Kon-Tiki" after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. "" is also the name of Heyerdahl's book; the Academy Award-winning documentary film chronicling his adventures; and the 2012 dramatized feature film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. His aim in