Norway’s Kon-Tiki Museum returns artifacts to Chile’s remote Easter Island

Associated Press

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Artifacts and human remains taken by a Norwegian explorer and anthropologist in the late 1940s are being returned by a museum in Norway to Chile’s remote territory of Easter Island in the mid-Pacific. The granddaughter of explorer Thor Heyerdahl said on Wednesday that he “would have been proud of what we are about to achieve.” In 1947, 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. This is the third time objects taken by him are being returned to the territory, also known as Rapa Nui.