Sculptures, weapons, and human skulls will soon go back to the South Pacific.© LEE COURSEYMoai sculptures on Rapa Nui.
IN 1955, THE NORWEGIAN EXPLORER Thor Heyerdahl voyaged to Rapa Nui, the ancestral name of Easter Island, and collected many things: tiny carved sculptures, a stone axe, even human skulls. Though Heyerdahl promised to return the items to Rapa Nui as soon as he had analyzed them and published his findings, his death in 2002 stranded the artifacts in Oslo's
Kon-Tiki Museum, over 8,800 miles away from their home.
Now, 17 years after Heyerdahl's death, the Norwegian government has finally agreed to return the objects to the indigenous Rapa Nui people, the first inhabitants of Easter Island, a Chilean island in the South Pacific. Last week, Norway's King Harald V and Queen Sonja signed an agreement with representatives from the Chilean ministry of culture, marking the beginning of what will likely be a long process of repatriation.
The agreement specifies that the artifacts must be returned to a "well-equipped museum," according to
the ministry's press release. Heyerdahl's son, Thor Heyerdahl Jr., also attended the signing and
told Smithsonian that the human remains would be prioritized in the repatriation process. The Kon-Tiki museum will retain most of its other artifacts, including the original Kon-Tiki raft as well as maps and exploratory materials the explorer used to navigate in his overseas expeditions.
Comment: One wonders if there were any particular driving forces that caused these communities to begin experimenting with agriculture. It's notable that, concurrent with the findings above, a recent study found evidence of plague in Sweden's early farmers: See also: