Norway Will Repatriate Thousands of Artifacts Taken From Easter Island

[Judi Lynn]

Thor Heyerdahl Jr. says his late father had promised to return the items after they had been analyzed and detailed in published works



Thor Heyerdahl photographed with archaeological artifacts from Easter Island (Photo by ullstein bild/ullstein bild via Getty Images)

By Meilan Solly
smithsonian.com
April 8, 2019

In 1955, Norwegian explorer and ethnographer Thor Heyerdahl organized an expedition to Easter Island. Over the course of this trip and a follow-up visit during the 1980s, he sought to test the theory that the Polynesian islands could have been initially settled by individuals traveling from South America, collecting thousands of artifacts—including tiny sculptures retrieved from caves, ancient weapons and human remains—pertinent to proving this premise. Although Heyerdahl promised to return the items after analyzing and publishing his findings, he would not live to see this pledge fully fulfilled.

Some 17 years after the ethnographer's death in 2002, his native country is finally acting on that promise to send the artifacts home. As Agence France-Presse reports, Norway has officially agreed to return the objects to the island’s indigenous Rapa Nui community.

King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway signed the agreement, which pledges to transfer items from Oslo’s Kon-Tiki Museum to a “well-equipped” museum on Easter Island—likely the Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum, according to Al Jazeera—during a recent state visit to the Chilean capital of Santiago. The explorer’s son, Thor Heyerdahl Jr., was also in attendance.

“This was what my father wanted,” Heyerdahl Jr., who accompanied his father on the 1955 trip as a teenager, told Norwegian state broadcaster NRK, as translated by the Telegraph’s Richard Orange. “This was extremely emotional for me, an absolute joy, and my father would probably have said exactly the same about the objects being given back.”

Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/norway-will-repatriate-thousands-artifacts-taken-easter-island-180971846/#85i2eIs3DTbzL8XJ.99