Despite the clear evidence that all the ancient ruins in Maldives are Buddhist, Heyerdahl claimed that early " sun-worshiping seafarers ", called the " Redin ", first settled on the islands.

Heyerdahl claimed that in Incan legend there was a sun-god named Con-Tici Viracocha who was the supreme head of the mythical fair-skinned people in Peru.

Heyerdahl claimed that when Jakob Roggeveen first discovered Easter Island in 1722, he supposedly noticed that many of the natives were white-skinned.

Heyerdahl claimed that these people could count their ancestors who were " white-skinned " right back to the time of Tiki and Hotu Matua, when they first came sailing across the sea " from a mountainous land in the east which was scorched by the sun.

During the uprising, Heyerdahl claimed, the " Long Ears " ignited their moat and retreated behind it, but the " Short Ears " found a way around it, came up from behind, and pushed all but two of the " Long Ears " into the fire.

Heyerdahl claimed that the geographic location of the mythic Aser or Æsir matched the region of contemporary Azerbaijan-" east of the Caucasus mountains and the Black Sea ".

Heyerdahl also claimed that findings and Russian written sources from the Caucasus area verify not only the existence of the Æsir or the Iranian Ossetians ; whom he described as " the Odin people of today "— but also of an ancient tribe living around the area of Lake Van in today's Turkey.

Thor Heyerdahl erroneously claimed that Redin were people coming from somewhere else, but according to Magieduruge Ibrahim Didi, a learned man from this island, it was the name which the converted Maldivians, ghairu deen ( non-Muslim ), ancestors after the general conversion to Islam.

* The Kon-Tiki ( 1947 ), a balsa raft built by Thor Heyerdahl and sailed from Peru to Polynesia to demonstrate the possibility of cultural exchange between South America and the Polynesian islands.

Heyerdahl also points to the similarities between the word Æsir and the Azeri and Ossetian peoples of the Caucasus, between the god Odin and the Caucasian language group Udi and between the god Tyr and Turkey, and between the Vanir ( a group of Norse gods ) and the word Vannic, which was for a time in the 19th and 20th centuries the name used for the Urartian language, spoken in ancient times in the area around Lake Van.

An example of such disputes is the proposal by Thor Heyerdahl that similarities between the culture of Polynesia and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Andes are due to diffusion from the latter to the former — a theory that currently has few supporters among professional anthropologists.

Heyerdahl subsequently made other voyages designed to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient peoples.

According to Heyerdahl, something happened between Admiral Roggeveen's discovery of the island in 1722 and James Cook's visit in 1774 ; while Roggeveen encountered white, Indian, and Polynesian people living in relative harmony and prosperity, Cook encountered a much smaller population consisting mainly of Polynesians and living in privation.

The controversy surrounding the Search for Odin project was in many ways typical of the relationship between Heyerdahl and the academic community.

Heyerdahl advanced a theory according to which the Canaries had been bases of ancient shipping between America and the Mediterranean.

Norwegian scientist / adventurer Thor Heyerdahl, convinced that early contact between the peoples of South America and Polynesia was possible, built the raft Kon Tiki from balsa logs, and upon it he and his crew sailed the Pacific Ocean from Peru to the Polynesian Tuamotu Archipelago in 1947.

Heyerdahl had studied the ancient people of South America and Polynesia and believed that there was a link between the two.

The main spars were a laminate of wood and reeds and Heyerdahl tested more than twenty different composites before settling on one that proved an effective compromise between bulk and torsional rigidity.

The call sign LI2B was used by Heyerdahl again in 1969 – 70, when he built a papyrus reed raft and sailed from Morocco to Barbados in an attempt to show a possible link between the civilization of ancient Egypt and the New World.

In his last book Jakten på Odin Thor Heyerdahl advanced a highly controversial idea postulating connections between Tanais and ancient Scandinavia.

However, the issue of Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl confirmed there was contact between the ancient Peruvians and people from Polynesia.

As Heyerdahl had hypothesized a transatlantic link between Egypt and Central America, he became intrigued by the Güímar pyramids and relocated to Tenerife.

There Heyerdahl researched possible parallels between the Canarian terrace structures and pyramid structures in Egypt and Central America in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica as ceremonial areas.

Heyerdahl hypothesised that the Canarian pyramids formed a temporal and geographic stopping point on voyages between ancient Egypt and the Maya civilization, initiating a controversy in which historians, esoterics, archaeologists, astronomers, and those with a general interest in history took part.

In spite of the conclusions regarding the age of the pyramids outlined above, Heyerdahl continued to maintain a belief " in a possible relationship between the existence of the pyramids and the pre Hispanic civilisation on Tenerife ".

Thor Heyerdahl, notably, made excavations in Morongo Uta, seeking links between Rapa Iti and Rapa Nui ( Easter Island ).

It was in this setting, surrounded by the ruins of the formerly glorious Marquesan civilization, that Heyerdahl first developed his theories regarding the possibility of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact between the pre-European Polynesians, and the peoples and cultures of South America.

This was one of the factors that led Thor Heyerdahl to theorize that there was pre-European contact between Polynesia and South America.

Heyerdahl called contemporary tribes of British Columbia, such as the Tlingit and Haida, descendants of these migrants.

Philologists and historians reject these parallels as mere coincidences, and also anachronisms, for instance the city of Azov did not have that name until over 1000 years after Heyerdahl claims the Æsir dwellt there.

Heyerdahl tried to seek the origins of the Æsir, following the route set out by Snorri Sturluson in the Ynglinga saga, from the Black Sea and the river Tanais ( referred to by Snorri Sturluson by the names Tanaís and Tanakvísl ) via Saxon homelands in northern Germany, Odense on Fyn, Denmark to Old Sigtuna, ancient Sweden.

In May 2011, the Thor Heyerdahl Archives were added to UNESCO's " Memory of the World " Register.

World leaders, such as Mexico's President Felipe Calderón ( 2009 ), Norway ’ s Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland ( 1987 ), Australia ’ s Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser ( 1980 ); conservation legends Dr. Jane Goodall and Dr. Sylvia Earle, Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton ; Nobel Laureates such as Dr. Thor Heyerdahl, Dr. Wangari Maathai, Dr. Mario Molina ; tribal and community leaders such as Tashka Yawanawa, Oren Lyons, Maqgubu Ntombela ; the heads of major international corporations ; and hundreds of budding conservationists have participated in the congress.

Heyerdahl further argued in his book American Indians in the Pacific that the current inhabitants of Polynesia migrated from an Asian source, but via an alternate route.

Ra II, a ship built from papyrus, was successfully sailed across the Atlantic by Thor Heyerdahl proving that it was possible to cross the Atlantic from Africa using such boats in early epochs of history.

* In 1969 and 1970 Thor Heyerdahl launched expeditions to cross the Atlantic in boats built from papyrus.

* 1947 – Thor Heyerdahl and five crew mates set out from Peru on the Kon-Tiki to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia.

In the mid-1980s, the Maldivian government allowed the popular Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, to excavate ancient sites.

* 1970 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

* 1914 – Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer ( d. 2002 )

* May 17 – Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II, to sail the Atlantic Ocean.

** Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian explorer ( b. 1914 )

Thor Heyerdahl ( October 6, 1914, Larvik, Norway – April 18, 2002, Colla Micheri, Italy ) was a Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer with a background in zoology and geography.

The Heyerdahl Archives span the years 1937 to 2002 and include his photographic collection, diaries, private letters, expedition plans, articles, newspaper clippings, original book and article manuscripts.

The Heyerdahl Archives are administered by the Kon-Tiki Museum and the National Library of Norway in Oslo.

Heyerdahl was born in Larvik, the son of master brewer Thor Heyerdahl and his wife Alison Lyng.

As a young child, Heyerdahl showed a strong interest in zoology.

Just before sailing together to the Marquesas Islands in 1936, Heyerdahl married his first wife, Liv Coucheron-Torp ( b. 1916 ), whom he had met shortly before enrolling at the university, and who had studied economics there.

In 1949 Heyerdahl married Yvonne Dedekam-Simonsen.

Heyerdahl blamed their separation on his being away from home and differences in their ideas for bringing up children.

In 1991, Heyerdahl married Jacqueline Beer ( b. 1932 ) as his third wife.

Heyerdahl died on April 18, 2002, in Colla Micheri in Italy where he had gone to spend the Easter holidays with some of his closest family members.

In the Kon-Tiki expedition, Heyerdahl and five fellow adventurers went to Peru, they constructed a pae-pae raft from balsa wood and other native materials, a raft that they called the Kon-Tiki.