Heyerdahl, Thor, << HY ehr dahl, thawr >> (1914-2002), was a Norwegian ethnologist and author. He won fame in 1947 by sailing a balsa-wood raft named Kon-Tiki from Peru to the Tuamotu Islands in eastern Polynesia. He and five companions made the trip to test his theory that the islands of Polynesia could have been settled by Indians from South America. His book, Kon-Tiki (1950), tells the story of the voyage. In 1958, he wrote Aku-Aku, a book about Easter Island. In 1970, Heyerdahl and a crew of seven sailed a totora reed boat named Ra II from Morocco to Barbados in the West Indies. He claimed that this voyage proved that the ancient Egyptians could have sailed similar boats to the New World. Heyerdahl was born on Oct. 6, 1914, in Larvik, Norway. He died on April 18, 2002. See also Raft .
