Artifacts and human remains taken by a Norwegian explorer and anthropologist in the late 1940s are being returned to Easter Island, an Oslo 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 later 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, reports the AP.
Many have been stored and displayed at the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway's capital, and some were given back in 1986; others, in 2006. The return has been a collaboration between the museum, Chile (Easter Island is a Chilean territory), 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 headed home this time around are sculpted stones, as well as human remains called Ivi Tepuna. 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 to them in our original language. Food is then prepared to eat a meal with them, where the smell of the food goes to the spirits," a member of the delegation, Laura Tarita Rapu Alarcon, told NTB.
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In 2019, an agreement was signed in Santiago, Chile, during a visit by Norway's King Harald. However, the COVID-19 pandemic stopped all activities in 2020, the museum said. Harald met with the Rapa Nui delegation on Tuesday. A book about Thor Heyerdahl's voyage—he died in 2002 at the age of 87—has become an international bestseller, and his film of the journey won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1951. Located 2,300 miles from South America, Rapa Nui was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1995. In 2019, it was officially renamed "Rapa Nui-Easter Island" from its previous name of just Easter Island.
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