To be honest, I regularly get the impression that individuals who are seriously engaged in academic sciences have brains arranged in a completely different way than normal people. And it would be okay for the usual eccentric actions - well, with whom it does not happen. But when scientists deliberately put themselves at great risk just to prove an unusual assumption ... And there are many examples of this. Take the famous anthropologist Thura Heyerdahl.
For those in the tank. Thor Heyerdahl- Norwegian traveler, archaeologist and anthropologist, who tested the methods of navigation of ancient peoples on his own ass. Together with his team of enthusiasts from different countries(a nice example of cosmopolitanism - there was even a Russian there. Yuri Senkevich) he recreated ancient seaworthy means from scratch. He has 4 large-scale projects on his account, of which only the first and the third can be called completely successful. The first is crossing the Pacific Ocean on a Kon-Tiki wooden raft. By this he proved that the ancient Incas could well come into contact with the peoples of Polynesia. Unfortunately, the answer to the question: why the hell did the ancient Incas need to swim for three months into the void, not meeting a single one along the way? large island, he did not give. But theoretically it was possible.
Second and third projects Thura Heyerdahl were dedicated to the ability of the ancient Egyptians to cross Atlantic Ocean on boats made of papyrus. And papyrus, as we remember, is a kind of common reed. It turned out only on the second attempt, but more on that later. As for the fourth expedition, the purpose of which was to prove the possibility of sea contact between the inhabitants of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and the population of the Indian subcontinent. But the political situation intervened and the boat was burned in protest against the wars that began in the Red Sea region. There, as usual, some African tribes (sponsored by the USA) tried to take power from other African tribes (sponsored by the USSR). Or vice versa. In short, the Red Sea could not swim, but overall the chances were high.
That is Thor Heyerdahl on his own experience, SUCCESSFULLY proved all his assumptions. At the same time, he almost died several times. Meanwhile, he had a wife and children. But no - scientific truths are more important. By the way, this citizen was married three times. Coincidence? I do not think.
The short disposition is clear, right? Now let's talk about all the difficulties that the expeditions had to face Thura Heyerdahl and which turned his voyage into a real harsh survival. What for? And so that you can find out how specific people coped with specific difficulties and learned something useful from this information.
So. Swimming in a papyrus boat "Ra"... The problems began from the very start of the project. Of course, there was no normal data on the shipbuilding of ancient Egypt, so we had to act on a whim, taking as a basis the traditional papyrus boats, which were used by Egyptian fishermen for a long time. But as the size increases, the complexity of the project increases exponentially. Actually, the local shipbuilder, who was hired to help with this case, merged, since it was unrealistic to put the mast in the straw into which you could not drive a nail or screw into it. But the project was finished somehow. Exactly that somehow, since one local builder was arrested for suspicion of the slave trade, then it suddenly turned out that there was no more papyrus in Egypt and would have to go to Ethiopia for it, or something else. Wonderful planning, to say nothing.
During the voyage it was supposed to eat fish, corned beef, tomatoes, peppers and other food preserved in olive oil, which could be stored for several months in conditions of high humidity and heat. Well and, of course, the stock fresh water... And all this is for 7 people. The dimensions of the boat are 15 meters long, 5 meters wide. The thickness of the papyrus layer is 2 meters.
In the process of sailing, it became clear that:
- The steering paddle was too thin, so it broke almost immediately. It had to be changed, spliced, repaired, but in the future it regularly failed.
- The lack of sides led to the fact that the deck was constantly flooded with water. This spoiled food, interfered with sleep and made work difficult.
- A life raft is a useful thing, but that didn’t prevent it from being taken apart to strengthen the sides of the boat.
- Life jackets according to the ancient Egyptian pattern - papyrus rolls - shit.
- The boat practically cannot turn, but it goes at a good speed, so if someone falls overboard ... We need safety cords, in short.
- The shortwave radio is shit. It turned out to shout only to the pleasure yacht, which barely sailed to in 5 days.
- The original design was defective, causing the stern to fall off and the boat to become a heap of floating reeds.
- The mast is the weakest part of the structure. A strong flurry breaks her as a fucking thing to do. And if the sail falls into the water and gets wet, you get the hell out of it.
- Corned beef deteriorates in heat and humidity and begins to stink. But the sharks are fine with that.
- Storms, suddenly, are a huge danger, especially for small, fragile boats. Actually, it was the storm that became the last straw that finished off the structure of the hull.
But a couple of weeks "Ra" still stayed afloat, which generally confirmed the reality of the assumption. Thor Heyerdahl made conclusions, so a year later "Ra 2" in 57 days he was able to reach the island of Barbados without any problems.
The fourth expedition was carried out on a cattail boat "Tigris" Yes, the Norwegian liked to sail on boats from the most hip materials during the trip. "Kon-Tiki" something from. So, this expedition found out that:
- The ancient mariners were very lucky that there was no sea movement as such. You didn't have to worry about the signal lights and your boat being rammed.
- Anchors can break. And after that, swimming becomes uncontrolled.
- The steering wheels still break. Since it is necessary to take into account the proportional increase in the dimensions of the vessel.
In general, the voyage was much calmer, since the correct conclusions were drawn. The boat stayed afloat for 6 months and could have withstood the same amount. That brilliantly confirmed the hypothesis about the possibility of seafaring contacts between the inhabitants of Mesopotamia and the Indian subcontinent.
And now the funniest part. Thor Heyerdahl I was terrified of water. Just horrible. But at 22 he fell into the lake, began to sink and somehow floated out. Since then, the fear has diminished, but it has not completely gone away. Perhaps, many months of sea "cruises" pursued the goal of finally conquering fear in oneself? If so, then the Norwegian is worthy of respect not only for decisiveness, courage and masterful survival skills, but also for his desire to fight his weaknesses.
Expeditions in detail Thura Heyerdahl can be read in his autobiographical books: "Expedition" Tigris "", "Journey to the" Kon-Tiki "", "Ra". The translator's language is somewhat colorful and replete with expressive idioms, but useful information it is still possible to extract.
In the spring of 1969, the papyrus boat Ra left the port of Safi, Morocco, commanded by the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. The crew, consisting of 7 people, including our compatriot Yuri Senkevich, was faced with the task of crossing the Antlantic Ocean.
Yuri Senkevich and Thor Heyerdahl during a trip on the papyrus boat "Ra", 1969
After analyzing many of the finds where papyrus ships were depicted, Heyerdahl began to think about what, even in the days of pre-Incan America, ancient seafarers crossed Pacific Ocean using reed vessels. The possible similarity of the ancient reed ships, which were made in Mexico and Peru, with the papyrus ships used by the inhabitants of the ancient civilizations of the Mediterranean, has not been denied by other competent researchers.
In 1969 Thor Heyerdahl conceived a papyrus boat expedition across the Atlantic. The researcher provided the craftsmen from Lake Chad with images and models of ancient Egyptian ships. On the basis of this material, they built a ship from papyrus, which was symbolically named "Ra"
In the 60s, Heyerdahl met with Mstislav Keldysh when he came to the USSR. In the conversation, they talked about Heyerdahl's future expeditions, and Keldysh asked him: "Why don't you take a Russian with you?" And, remembering Keldysh's question, he wrote a letter to the Soviet academician asking him to find him a Russian doctor who knew English language and with a sense of humor. The choice fell on a young doctor, who recently returned from Antarctica from the Vostok station after a year-long wintering, Yuri Senkevich.
So Senkevich ended up in an international crew: Thor Heyerdahl (Norway), Abdula Jibrin (Chad), Norman Baker (USA), Santiago Genovez (Mexico), George Sorial (Egypt), Carlo Mauri (Italy) and Yuri Senkevich (USSR)
On May 25, 1969 the papyrus boat "Ra" was launched. On board, besides the 7 people of the crew, there were also Safi the monkey, chickens and a duck.
A tailwind and the North Equatorial Current contributed to the fact that "Ra" covered 5 thousand kilometers of the sea route in 2 months of sailing, but the trip ended with the boat sinking
According to Yuri Senkevich, this happened due to the fact that the builders of the boat from Lake Chad chopped off the curved stern, deciding not to be guided by Heyerdahl's calculations and drawings. And the stern was necessary so that the boat would not flood when it overcomes high waves. When this was realized, the stern was added, but the integrity of the structure had already been violated. A month after entering the open ocean, the stern began to plunge into the water, and "Ra" literally turned into a submarine.
Here are excerpts from Yuri Senkevich's diary:
"June 4th. In total, we have five broken oars and one is lost."
"June 29th. There is no doubt that we are sinking more and more, albeit slowly. It is also certain that we will not be able to sink, but that" Ra "will be flooded across the deck - that's for sure."
"July 9th. On the right, the ropes tying the papyrus are torn. The entire starboard side is shaking and threatening to break away from us."
The crew courageously tried to save the boat. Under the steering bridge was life raft foam, designed for six people, which was sawn and reinforced at the stern. This helped hold out for another two weeks before the SOS signal was sent.
The signal was heard from an American yacht. A word to Yuri Senkevich: “Three or four days have passed, we were about to meet with our rescuers. And, rejoicing at this, we sent everything unnecessary, including food and water, overboard, not assuming that the wait for the meeting would stretch for another five days. These five days were not the best in our life. " On July 16, 1969, exhausted travelers left the long-suffering boat and moved to the Shenandoah yacht. Thus ended this first, but not the last journey.
A year later, in May, the launch of "Ra-2" took place.
Thor Heyerdahl was born in Larvik into the Thuros Heyerdahl family in 1912. Why Turov? It's just that from generation to generation of boys in the Heyerdahl family, it was customary to call Turai. And, although both for the father and for the mother of the future traveler, the marriage was the third and seven children already grew up in the family, it was the youngest son who was named Tour.
The father, middle-aged (he was already 50 years old when Tour was born) and a wealthy owner of a brewery, traveled around Europe with pleasure and spent a lot of time with the baby, making sure to take him with him on trips.
Mother - Alison Lyng Heyerdahl - also doted on her son and not only loved him, but also worked a lot with the boy. Trained as a biologist in England and being a follower of the theory of Charles Darwin, it was she who instilled in Tour a love of zoology.
As a result, the family's favorite created at home, in the room provided by his parents at his complete disposal, a zoological museum, the most spectacular exhibit of which was ... a stuffed viper. There were many different miracles in the museum - local and brought from long-distance travels, so on weekends whole families came to the Heyerdal - not only for traditional tea, but also on “sightseeing tours”.
Tour's admission to the zoological faculty of the University of Oslo in 1933 came as no surprise to anyone. At the university, he continues to study zoology, but gradually he pays more and more attention to the cultures and civilizations of antiquity. It was at this time that he became convinced of the thought that modern mankind had played too much and forgot about the age-old commandments and traditions, and therefore entered the period of fratricidal wars and hatred. He will be convinced of this until the last minutes of his life.
In the meantime, Heyerdahl is especially interested in the culture of Polynesia and gets acquainted with Berlin zoologists Christine Bonnevie and Hjalmar Borch, to whom he travels to Berlin, and in addition, he actively uses the opportunity to read books and documents from the largest private scientific library owned by Bjarne Kraepelin, a wealthy wine merchant from Oslo.
Wind of wanderings
Quite quickly (after seven semesters) Tour becomes bored at the university: he possesses truly encyclopedic knowledge, both thanks to his own thirst for knowledge and from his parents in childhood. He wants to do his own research and go on a real journey to the distant shores of exotic islands, since his German zoologists Christine Bonnevie and Hjalmar Broch are ready to organize and sponsor an expedition to the Polynesian islands, the purpose of which was to understand how the animals inhabiting the islands in our days.
The tour was not just a "scientific adventure", but also honeymoon trip, because before sailing to the Marquesas Islands, Heyerdahl married the beautiful Liv Cusheron-Thorpe, a student at the Faculty of Economics, whom he met back in 1932.
Liv turned out to be a real adventurer - like Tour himself - and this is an important quality for travelers: both spouses were ready, at their own peril and risk, to go to a tropical paradise for several years, where the scientist had not yet set foot. Liv not only accompanied her husband on the trip, but was also his faithful assistant: she studied mountains of zoological literature and books about Polynesia.
The boat trip was wonderful, and life on the deserted island of Fatu Khiva was just fabulous for newlyweds in love at first. Although there were no signs of civilization on the island, an impenetrable forest grew around their tents, and the last representative of the cannibal tribe lived nearby - fortunately, quite peacefully disposed.
On the island, it turned out that Tur could not ... swim. But his young wife feels like a fish in the water. Soon, thanks to the efforts of Liv Heyerdahl, he was already cutting through the azure sea surface with pleasure.
Not everything was so simple on the island: soon the inhabitants neighboring islands, Polynesians, themselves came to the spouses and explained that living so long in complete isolation and loneliness is simply life-threatening. As it turned out later, they were right: few people are able to live together for a year and keep their feelings.
The islanders often came to visit and even showed stone statues of the gods hiding in the jungle.
A year later, it was time to leave the islands, although it was against the plans: Tour caught a dangerous illness, and Liv told him the good news - she was expecting a baby. Thus ended Heyerdahl's first journey.
Tour told about the expedition to the Marquesas Islands in his first book "In Search of Paradise" (1938), which was published just on the eve of World War II and passed almost unnoticed. In 1974, Heyerdahl published an expanded version of the book called Fatu Hiva.
Travel to Canada and World War II
Upon returning to Oslo, Liv gave birth to Turu's son Tur, whom the family began to affectionately call Turito in the Italian manner, and a year later their son Björn was born.
Tour continued to engage in science. He sent part of the collection collected in Polynesia to Berlin, and donated part to his native university.
It must be admitted that after the first expedition the young scientist changed his mind about becoming a zoologist, he became more interested not in animals, but in people. A zoologist sailed to Polynesia, and an anthropologist scientist returned to Norway.
Tour constantly returned in his thoughts to the stone statues of the gods, one of whom the Polynesians called Tiki. This name was familiar to Heyerdahl - that was the name of the god of the Incas. But how could the Incas cross the sea and sail from America to Polynesia? Or was it the other way around?
Tour decides to go to Canada to its "wild west", where tribes of Indians lived who could preserve the traditions of seafarers, and invites Liv on a trip, especially since family relations began to deteriorate catastrophically and something had to be done.
Heyerdahl traveled all over western Canada, but nowhere did he find traces of sea travelers who sailed from Southeast Asia at the beginning of the Stone Age.
In Canada, he was found by the Second World War. As a true patriot, he wanted to defend his homeland and, eventually moving to the United States, he enlisted in the army. We have already talked about Heyerdahl's participation in World War II here. The Heyerdahl family lived in the United States during the war, and then moved to England.
Expedition "Kon-Tiki"
In 1946, Heyerdahl is carried away by a new project: he claims that the American Indians could in ancient times reach the Pacific Islands on rafts. Despite the negative reaction from historians, Heyerdahl organized the Kon-Tiki expedition - and proved that he was right: he and his team were able to travel on a balsa raft from Peru to Raroia atoll in the Tuamotu archipelago. The most amazing thing is that many scientists refused to believe even in the fact of the journey of the restless Norwegian until it was made and shown documentary"Kon-Tiki".
In addition to Heyerdahl, five more travelers took part in the expedition - Knut Haugland, Bengt Danielsson, Erik Hesselberg, Torstein Roby and Hermann Watzinger. In Peru, they built a pae-pae raft from balsa wood and other natural materials and gave it the name Kon-Tiki. Heyerdahl was prompted to sail on a raft by the ancient chronicles and drawings of the Spanish conquistadors depicting the rafts of the Incas, as well as local legends and archaeological evidence, which suggested the existence of contacts between South America and Polynesia.
A film was made about this exciting and difficult expedition, which will premiere on April 16.
After returning from the expedition, Heyerdahl divorces Liv, who soon married an American millionaire, and in the same year marries Yvonne Dedekam-Simonsen. In the second marriage, Tour had three daughters - Anette, Marian and Helen Elizabeth.
Expedition to Easter Island
Heyerdahl was always impossible to stop, and for a long time he could not sit in one place. Therefore, in 1955 he organized an archaeological expedition to Easter Island, which included professional Norwegian archaeologists.
According to the results of the expedition, another bestseller "Aku-Aku" was written, about which Professor S. A. Tokarev wrote:
“From the research of Heyerdahl follows one somewhat unexpected, but important for science fact: the preservation of cultural tradition among the islanders. Recently, ethnographers have formed the opinion that the inhabitants of Easter Island, half-exterminated and demoralized by the colonial regime, have completely forgotten their own past, that they are now like strangers in their native land. It turns out that this is not entirely true. True, the islanders do not remember the ancient writing, not all of them imagine how statues were moved and erected in ancient times. But the descendants of the former stonemasons and sculptors still know how their ancestors cut down the statues and separated them from the parent rock; they were able to move and re-erect a huge stone idol, as the fathers and grandfathers did; they remember the witchcraft spell songs that were sung at the same time. The caches still contain ancestral treasures, which are carefully looked after. The islanders believe in their magical power and in the power of the spirits that guard the caches, and remember their genealogies, their origin from the "short-eared" or "long-eared".
It was this preservation of cultural continuity that allowed Heyerdahl to carry out a special kind of scientific experiment: with the help of the islanders, he showed how the statues were carved, how they were moved and placed. But this has seemed like a mystery for such a long time!
Archaeological research is a major merit of Heyerdahl. Before him, no one on the island produced them. But even here without help local residents he would not have done anything: Heyerdahl was able to penetrate the hiding places - caves - only because he managed to gain the trust of the islanders. And this he owes in large measure to his previous travels, which awakened among the Polynesians a patriotic interest in their own past. "Senor Kon-Tiki" became a popular figure throughout Polynesia. "
In his book Easter Island: The Mystery Solved, written in 1989, Heyerdahl suggested that the island was first inhabited by "long-eared" from South America, and the "short-eared" arrived there from Polynesia only in the middle of the 16th century and could either sail to the island themselves or be brought there as slaves.
"Ra" and "Ra-II"
1969 saw the turn of papyrus boat trips. Heyerdahl built two boats and attempted to cross the Atlantic Ocean. The first boat failed: designed according to drawings and boat models Ancient egypt and called "Ra", it was made of Ethiopian reeds and, having set out from the coast of Morocco, quickly disintegrated (simply soaked) in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
In 1970, the second boat - "Ra-II", modified taking into account the mistakes made, was built by craftsmen from Lake Titicaca in Bolivia and also set off from Morocco. This voyage was successful: "Ra-II" sailed to Barbados, and Heyerdahl once again won the victory: he proved to the entire scientific world community that ancient navigators could make transatlantic sailings using the Canary Current.
The expedition was attended by an international crew, including the doctor Yuri Senkevich. Heyerdahl has always been a pacifist and wanted to show that even on a tiny piece of "land" in the ocean, people of different political and religious beliefs and nationalities can live in peace and friendship.
The book "Expeditions to the Ra" "was written about these expeditions and a documentary film was made.
Another reed boat
No less well-known is the trip on the Tigris, which Heyerdahl built in 1977 and set off on it with an international team on a journey from Iraq to the shores of Pakistan, and then to the Red Sea, proving that between Mesopotamia and the Indian civilization (modern Pakistan) trade and migration contacts could exist.
April 3, 1978 "Tigris", which sailed for five months and retained all its seaworthiness, was burned in Djibouti in protest against the wars that broke out in the Red Sea and the Horn of Africa, in protest "against manifestations of inhumanity", and Heyerdahl sent a letter UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim, in which he called on all "ordinary people of all industrialized countries to realize the crazy realities of our time" and think about the future of "a common civilization so that it does not suffer the fate of a sinking ship."
Tireless Adventurer
Thor Heyerdahl remained restless until the end of his days.
He examined the mounds found on Maldives v Indian Ocean, where he discovered sculptures of bearded sailors with elongated earlobes ("long-eared"), which allowed him to assert that there was a civilization of sailors, immigrants from modern Sri Lanka, settled in the Maldives and, perhaps, founded the culture of Easter Island.
He investigated the pyramids of Guimar on the island of Tenerife and proved that these are not random piles of stones, but real man-made pyramid structures with an astronomical orientation, and also stated that Canary Islands in ancient times it was a staging post on the way between America and the Mediterranean.
At the end of his life, Thor Heyerdahl once again aroused the anger of the public, putting forward the theory that tribes came to Scandinavia during the great migration of peoples from the steppes around present-day Azov. Tour Heyerdahl spent archaeological excavations in the lower reaches of the Don and in the Caucasus, and on the basis of the collected material, he published two books: in 1999 his monograph "Without Borders" was published, and in 2001 - its revised version "In Pursuit of Odin". Both books were co-authored with the Swede Per Lilliestrom.
The book was flooded with negative reviews from historians, in which Heyerdahl and Lilliestrom were declared "pseudoscientists." However, no one was able to refute the finds of the great traveler.
In one of his interviews, Heyerdahl said: “I'm not looking for adventure for the sake of adventure. The fullness of life is not necessarily associated with overcoming the elements - the work of thought, the achievement of a humane goal decorate it more strongly. I am organically incapable of considering people who lived millennia before us as inferior to myself, and I am disgusted when I face such often even subconscious disregard for those who lived before us and did not own our technology. It gives me pleasure to snap the noses of learned rusks and arrogant arrogant men. But the motives for overcoming one's own weakness, passivity, the motives of the assertion of the human personality through the achievement of seemingly unattainable to me are close and understandable ... "
The personal life of the great scientist and traveler, troublemaker and lover of life was no less stormy. At the age of 1996, the father of five, Heyerdahl, divorces his second wife and is married to former Miss France and actress Jacqueline Bier. Having lived on the Italian Riviera for many years, Heyerdahl moved with his wife, who always and everywhere accompanied him on trips to Tenerife, leaving his beloved Colla Meekere estate to the second family.
In Tenerife, Tour bought an old mansion with three hundred years of history and a large garden with an area of one hectare. In that garden, not only orange trees and avocados grew, but also papyrus brought by the owner himself from Egypt. Heyerdahl just loved to mess around there and even said that if he had a second life, he would definitely become a biologist.
It is wrong to hang labels on a person and believe that more than anything in the world Tour loved to wander around the world. He himself claimed that he simply adores his home, loves to be with his family and still loves to dance. He called himself a "civilized savage."
Heyerdahl died at the age of 87 from a brain tumor in the estate of Kolla Micheri in the Italian town of Alassio in the province of Savona, surrounded by his family - his wife Jacqueline and children.
In his homeland, a monument was erected to him during his lifetime, and a museum was opened in his house.
He was able to clearly prove: the distant ancestors of today's man were not primitive creatures. They were wonderful projectors and designers, they traveled and crossed the seas, oceans, continents, thanks to which they interacted with each other.
Young researcher-zoologist
Thor Heyerdahl was born on October 6, 1914 in the small Norwegian town of Larvik. His parents were quite wealthy and respected people in the city - his father owned a brewery, and his mother was an employee of the anthropological museum. And although there were seven children in the family, each of them got enough attention from their parents and their care. So, Tour's mother was engaged in his education, and already at a young childhood, the guy was familiar with Darwin's anthropological theory, and his father organized trips to Europe.
Among the many childhood hobbies of the Tour was the love of nature. As a child, he even tried to organize his own museum at home. It is not known for certain what exhibits his exposition consisted of, but its "highlight" was a stuffed viper, which was proudly shown to frequent guests in the Heyerdahl house as part of a small excursion.
The study of the flora and fauna of our planet almost ended fatally for Tour - once he almost drowned in a river, and, having escaped, acquired a fear of water for his entire childhood. Young Heyerdahl could not even imagine that he would enter the history of mankind thanks to his voyages to open ocean on the raft!
When in 1933, 19-year-old Tour entered the University of Oslo, in order to comprehend knowledge in the field of geography and zoology, the future scientist met with the outstanding traveler Björn Kraepelin. This meeting played an important role in the life of Heyerdahl: Björn introduced the young student to his collection of objects from the island of Tahiti and numerous books on the history of peoples. The tour was amazed by the knowledge gained, a desire arose in it to comprehend the culture of little-known peoples even deeper. This predetermined his future.
Paradise island Fatu Hiva
After completing his studies, two incredibly important events take place in the life of Thor Heyerdahl: the young scientist finally married his beloved woman Liv Cusheron-Thorpe, with whom he was in love from the beginning of his studies, and he also leaves his native land for important scientific research and travels to the islands of Polynesia ... The wife went with Heyerdahl, and this business trip became a real one for a couple in love.
The purpose of the Tour was to study the causes of the emergence of certain species of animals on remote islands Polynesia. For this, the scientist, together with his wife, the Panama Canal, went to Tahiti. Here the couple spent a month, living in the hut of the local leader, who introduced the newcomers to the life and culture of the tribe. Fascinated by the wild, untouched nature and unusual culture that they were eager to explore, the Heyerdals couple went to the isolated island of Fatu Hiva.
Life, deprived of the benefits of modernity, not burdened by the noise of the city, was very much to the liking of Tur and Liv. The newlyweds lived like Adam and Eve in complete harmony with nature, rejoicing in its gifts and not remembering that somewhere else there was another life - everything around seemed full and natural. For a whole year, Heyerdahl and his wife lived on paradise island, but soon the measured and quiet life came to an end: Tour fell ill and needed the help of a qualified doctor, and Liv was pregnant. After unforgettable vacation The Heyerdals returned to civilization.
The war that invaded the plans of the scientist
Back in Norway, Tour became a father and published a book about his travels called "In Search of Paradise". A year spent on the islands of Polynesia radically changed the scientist's views on science as a whole. His desire to study animals was supplanted by the desire to study people and their history: a number of theories were formed in Tour's head, and he wanted to confirm them with scientific facts.
So, the researcher suggested that the ancient Incas somehow swam across the ocean and settled the islands of Polynesia. To substantiate this hypothesis, Heyerdahl went to Canada, but no evidence was found to prove his assumption.
The anthropologist's plans were disrupted by the Second World War, during which Tour was not going to sit out - how a real man and a patriot he went to the front. During the difficult war years, Heyerdahl managed to travel, take part in battles and receive the rank of lieutenant. And at the end of the war, the researcher had a detailed plan for a scientific experiment that would prove the correctness of his theory.
Travel to "Kon-Tiki"
Thor Heyerdahl decides to build a raft according to the drawings of the ancient Incas and cross the ocean on it. The scientific community laughed in the face of the scientist, proving the impossibility of the idea, but the desperate anthropologist was completely confident in the success of the experiment. The tour, together with five other travelers and scientists, arrived in Peru, where, according to old schemes, drawings and based on many legends and stories, brave explorers are building a raft of balsa wood.
Named in honor of the sun god, the Kon-Tiki raft endured all the vicissitudes of a long journey of 8000 km and moored to Tuamotu Island, crossing the Pacific Ocean. 101 days were full of discoveries and incredible adventures, and a close-knit team of scientists proved that a person can not only survive in conditions of complete discomfort, but also find mutual understanding and friendship.
Returning home, Thor Heyerdahl writes the book "Kon-Tiki", which was an incredible success all over the world, and the documentary film, which the scientist filmed while sailing, won an Oscar in 1952. But the main achievement of the expedition was not recognition and glory, but the proof of the possibility of the transatlantic crossings of the ancient Incas.
The failure of "Ra" and the triumph of "Ra II"
Heyerdahl's research did not end there. The anthropologist decides to do the same in order to establish whether the inhabitants of Ancient Egypt could travel across the ocean on their ships. For this, a scientist with a team of like-minded people builds a vessel from papyrus called "Ra", but the boat did not live up to the trust of its creator and broke into two parts in the middle of the journey.
Thor Heyerdahl did not despair of such a failure and, taking into account design errors, built the boat "Ra II", which successfully crossed the Atlantic Ocean and moored to the coast of Barbados. The researcher described his impressions of the trip and his discoveries in the book "Expedition to" Ra "". The researchers did a great job and, in addition to justifying Heyerdahl's theory, collected samples of pollution in the ocean, after which they presented them to the UN, and also proved that even people of different nationalities, beliefs and religious views can peacefully exist on a small piece of land if they are united by a common goal.
Until the very old age, the great explorer Thor Heyerdahl did not abandon his scientific activity and made many discoveries, but it was his voyages that brought him universal fame. Purposeful and enthusiastic, he did not know the rest either in research activities or in personal life: he had five children and was married three times. Having made a colossal contribution to the development of scientific thought and going down in history as the most outstanding Norwegian of the twentieth century, Thor Heyerdahl died, surrounded by his relatives, at the age of 87, from a serious illness - a brain tumor.
In 1937, the Norwegian archaeologist and traveler Thor Heyerdahl with his wife Liv sailed from Marseille, across the Atlantic Ocean, Panama Canal, Pacific Ocean, to Tahiti. After spending a month in the house of a Tahitian leader, they moved to the lonely island of Fatu Hiva, where they spent a whole year in isolation from civilization. Although the purpose of the expedition was to study the fauna of Fatu Khiva, Heyerdahl was much more interested in the question of how Polynesia was settled. During a forced trip to the island of Khivaoa for medical help, Heyerdahl made acquaintance with the Norwegian Henry Lee, who had lived on the island since 1906. He showed the young researcher stone statues in the jungle, the origin of which no one knew anything. But Lee mentioned that similar statues are also known from finds in Colombia, a country located almost 6 thousand kilometers east of the Marquesas Islands. The study of the way of life and customs of the natives, the study of the flora and fauna of the islands, as well as the ocean currents, led Heyerdahl to the idea that the prevailing winds and currents arising off the coast of America contributed to the appearance of the first settlers on the islands. This point of view was completely at odds with the then established opinion, according to which the ancestors of the Polynesians came to the islands from the shores South-East Asia... This was followed by work in archives, museums, the study of ancient manuscripts and drawings, which depicted the rafts of the ancient Indians of South America. Finally, the idea of traveling on a raft from the Latin American coast to the Polynesian islands, in order to confirm the possibility of such a way of settling the island archipelagos, took shape a year before sailing, in 1946.
The voyage raft was built from balsa wood, the lightest wood in the world. A raft, similar to what the Indians used to do, was built without a single nail. It consisted of 9 logs from 10 to 14 meters long, folded so that the raft had a sharp nose. The logs were tied with ropes, and a mast with a large (27 square meters) rectangular sail rose above them. The raft was equipped with a stern oar and two parallel rows of centerboards (boards sticking out from the bottom of the raft and playing the role of both keel and rudder). The deck was covered with bamboo. In the middle of the raft was a small but rather sturdy hut with a roof of banana leaves. The travelers gave their raft the name "Kon-Tiki", after the name of the legendary Polynesian hero.
On April 28, 1947, an extraordinary motorcade set off from the small port of Callao on the Peruvian coast to the Pacific Ocean. Peruvian naval tugboat Guardian Rio pulled Heyerdahl's raft. About 50 miles offshore, reaching the Humboldt Current, the crew of the tug said goodbye to the travelers, and for them began a long and dangerous journey to Polynesia.
2 Swimming
Already the first days of the voyage showed that the raft is stable, obeys the rudder and, thanks to the ocean current and winds, slowly but surely moves in the right direction. Relative order was restored on the raft, all property, instruments and food supplies were securely secured. Immediately, the responsibilities were assigned and the watch was assigned.
Heyerdahl later described in detail in his book daily life on the raft and the duties of each crew member: “Bengt could most likely be found in the door of the cabin, where he lay on his stomach, delving into one of the seventy-three volumes of his library. In general, we appointed him as a steward, it was he who measured our daily ration. Herman could be anywhere at any time of the day - either with meteorological instruments on the mast, or with underwater goggles under the raft, where he checked the centerboard, or behind the stern, in an inflatable boat, where he was engaged balloons and some incomprehensible devices. He was our head of the technical department and was responsible for meteorological and hydrographic observations. Knut and Thorstein fiddled with their damp dry batteries, soldering irons and circuits endlessly. Every night they took turns on duty and sent our reports and weather reports on the air. Eric most often patched a sail, or spliced ropes, or carved wooden sculptures, or painted bearded people and amazing fish. Precisely at noon, he armed himself with a sextant and climbed onto the box to look at the sun and calculate how far we had walked in a day. I myself diligently filled out the logbook, compiled reports, collected samples of plankton and fish, and made a film. "
On the raft, everyone kept watch for two hours, and at night the duty officer was necessarily tied with a rope. Issues related to current activities were resolved at general meetings. In turn, they prepared food, the basis of which was fish and dry rations received for testing from the military. Before sailing, the ration boxes were covered with a thin layer of asphalt to prevent the ingress of sea water into them. Their supply should have been enough for four months. In addition, there were supplies of fruits, coconuts, and a lot of fishing gear on the raft. Sometimes they didn't even have to catch anything, the fish itself jumped on their raft. Every morning, Heyerdahl and his companions found dozens of flying fish on the deck, which immediately went to the frying pan (there was a small primus on the raft, which was in a wooden box). The ocean was teeming with tuna, mackerel and bonito fish. Having adapted to sea fishing, travelers even began to catch sharks.
The travelers coped with all the problems that arose during the voyage quite successfully. They could only rely on their own strength. If something happened, there was no hope for help, since the route passed away from the sea routes. Fortunately, they managed to avoid severe storms.
3 Raroia Atoll
The first time the crew saw the land on July 30, it was the island of Puka-Puka. On August 7, 1947, the raft approached the Raroia Atoll, which is part of the Tuamotu island archipelago. To get to land, the team had to overcome coral reefs. Having exhausted themselves in attempts to break through the reef, the travelers decided to "saddle" it at high tide. They survived several terrible hours under the impact of powerful waves. Then they managed to get over the reef and wade to the sandy shore.
The travelers spent 101 days in the ocean, covering 8000 kilometers. Heyerdahl and his companions proved that on balsa rafts similar voyages could have taken place in ancient times, making it quite probable and relatively safe migration of people from Latin America to the islands of Polynesia. Based on the results of the voyage, Heyerdahl wrote the book "Voyage to Kon-Tiki", which immediately became a world bestseller, and the documentary film about the amazing voyage across the ocean soon received an Oscar.
From the port of Papeete in Tahiti, where the travelers were waiting for an opportunity to return to their homeland, a Norwegian ship took them along with the raft. Now the legendary raft is located in Oslo, where the Kon-Tiki Museum was established.
