Kon-Tiki
.jpg)
Kon-Tiki 1947
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
Kon-Tiki is a balsa raft used bythe Norwegian Thor Heyerdahl to sailacross the Pacific from Lima in 1947. He wanted to prove that the colonization of Polynesia from South America was possible with the technical possibilities of pre-Columbian Peru before the time of the Inca .
After the expedition, Heyerdahl wrote a book called Kon-Tiki; the documentary of the same name about the expedition won an Academy Award for best documentary in 1951 . The raft is now in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo .
It was named after Qun Tiksi Wiraqucha , the creator god in Inca mythology . According to legend, he came from the east, founded the Inca civilization as the culture bringer Kon-Tiki and finally sailed further west.
prehistory
According to theories common at the time, Polynesia was settled from Asia via Micronesia or Melanesia , at least from west to east. Heyerdahl, like individual authors before him, did not consider such a settlement of Polynesia from Asia to be impossible, but less likely, since it would have been against wind and current ( trade winds and equatorial current ) throughout . Settlement from the other side of the Pacific, America, which is more likely according to Heyerdahl, was not even discussed in specialist circles, as it was technically impossible for the pre-Columbian population. The main proponent of this generally accepted opinion was the respected archaeologist Samuel Kirkland Lothrop (Harvard), who had claimed in his treatise on the balsa raft that it would have sunk after two weeks.
Heyerdahl assumed two possible main ways of settlement:
- From Southeast Asia, following the Japan Current , via British Columbia to Hawaii and on to the Polynesian Triangle .
- From South America , with the strong current of the Humboldt Current and in front of the trade wind, westwards.
Heyerdahl rejected the possibility of a settlement from the direct opposite direction on the grounds that neither archaeological finds from Melanesia nor Micronesia had any noteworthy similarities with the Polynesian culture, in contrast to South American artifacts. Botanical findings also indicated that South American plants were used in Polynesia before Europeans visited the area, and that their names, such as Kūmara , often matched. The spread of the plant via the current was unlikely, but its name could certainly not have come across the sea without accompanying people.
The Kon-Tiki voyage was therefore intended to provide evidence to the contrary to Lothrop's recognized expert opinion.
The expedition
The raft
The raft was built according to reports and pictures from the time of the Spanish conquistadors. It consisted of nine trunks of balsa wood that were up to 13.7 m long and 60 cm thick. They were connected with 317.5 m 1.25 ″ (approx. 32 mm) hemp rope. The crossbars made of balsa trunks, which were 5.5 m long and 30 cm in diameter, were tied at intervals of 1 m. Two boards made of pine wood served as a breakwater at the bow, and several 2.5 cm thick and 60 cm long boards were used as swords between the balsa trunks . The 8.8 m high mast was made from two trunks of mangrove wood and tied together to form an A-shape. Behind it was a hut measuring 4.25 × 2.4 m, 1.2–1.5 m high and covered with banana leaves. At the stern there was a 5.8 m long steering rudder made of mangrove wood with a rudder blade made of spruce wood. The main sail was 4.6 × 5.5 m; Photos also show a top sail above the main sail and a driver sail. The deck was partly made of bamboo mesh. Only traditional building materials were used for the construction, there were no metal parts.
Catering
The Kon-Tiki had 1,100 liters of drinking water in 56 water jugs on board. 200 coconuts, sweet potatoes, bottle gourds and other fruits and root vegetables served as provisions. The US Army provided food rations, tin cans and survival equipment. However, it turned out that the crew would have survived from fishing and the possible provisioning at the time. Flying fish , golden mackerel , yellowfin tuna and sharks were caught .
Technical Equipment
In addition to a compass and sextant and some medical equipment, there were also three waterproof radios on board and a kite antenna. Call sign was LI2B. The radio amateurs Haugland and Raaby have regular contact on shortwave, on August 5th even directly to Oslo on amateur radio frequencies. The largely identical devices - one each for 40/20 m, 10 m and 6 m - were made up of type 2E30 tubes and delivered around 6 W of HF power. They were powered by batteries, but a hand-operated generator was also available.
crew
- Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002), the leader of the expedition and, like almost all the other crew members, Norwegian .
- Erik Hesselberg (1914–1972), helmsman and artist. He also painted the face on the sail of the raft.
- Bengt Danielsson (1921–1997), the only Swede, was the chef. As an anthropologist , he was scientifically interested in Heyerdahl's theory. He was also the only member of the expedition to speak Spanish.
- Knut Haugland (1917–2009) was the radio operator. He had in World War II as an agent of the sabotage of the Norsk Hydro plant for heavy water in the Norwegian Rjukan involved.
- Torstein Raaby (1920–1964), also a radio operator, was involved as an agent in Norway in the preparations for the sinking of the Tirpitz .
- Herman Watzinger (1916–1986), engineer of German origin, second in command, prepared the hydrographic and meteorological records.
procedure
The journey began on April 28, 1947 in Callao , Peru , after the raft had been christened the day before. The raft was first towed free from the coast so as not to get in the way of coastal shipping. The danger of noticing the raft too late would have been too great for the ships, which are principally obliged to evade, while saving evasive maneuvers by the raft would have been impossible.
As expected, the Humboldt Current pushed the raft westward. Since the sail basically acts in front of the wind, the rudder only allowed steering to a limited extent. Only in the course of the voyage did the crew learn to use the action of the plug-in keels, which allowed the course to deviate from the wind direction.
During the trip it became clear that, contrary to the opinion of the experts, the tree trunks impregnated themselves with their sap and prevented the penetration of sea water, so the raft remained buoyant for much longer than experts had predicted. Steel cables and metal fittings, called indispensable by the same experts, would have cut up the wooden construction and meant the failure of the experiment.
Rainwater could be collected in the Passat Zone and drinking water supplies replenished. Shortwave radio enabled regular contact with radio amateurs, especially in the USA. On July 30th, land came into sight for the first time with the atoll Puka-Puka , but could not be approached due to lack of maneuverability: The raft drifted past. Landing on Fangatau on August 4th was also not possible. Three days later, on August 7, the raft hit the reef off Raroia in the Tuamotu Archipelago from the wind. In 101 days it had covered around 3,770 nm (6,980 km) at an average speed of 1.5 knots .
The Kon-Tiki's superstructures were damaged on landing (the hut collapsed), but the raft's nine main trunks remained intact. The crew went ashore and after a week was discovered by Polynesians who lived on the other side of the atoll. The raft was soon washed over the reef into the lagoon when the tide was high. It was then towed to Tahiti and, with the help of Norwegian shipowners, brought back to Norway, where the Kon-Tiki Museum was built in Oslo .
Scientific importance
Marine fauna
A species of mackerel was discovered during the Kon-Tiki expedition when a specimen was washed into the sleeping bag of crew member Torstein Raaby at night. Another mackerel was seen trying to attack a lantern at night. There was also one of the rare sightings of a whale shark .
Nautical
Heyerdahl proved that science had significantly underestimated the seaworthiness of ancient watercraft, and also that, contrary to contemporary opinion, even a primitive raft could be steered with the means of the pre-Columbians, even though the Kon-Tiki crew had not yet managed to deviate significantly from the wind direction So show up. Predictions that the raft would behave like a ball in the wind have been refuted.
About 600 miles southwest of the Galapagos Islands , the position of a presumed reef recorded on the nautical chart could be controlled. A sounding confirmed that this is a phantom island is and who reported not exist breakers.
anthropology
Heyerdahl provided evidence that colonizing Polynesia from South America would have been technically possible; Anthropologists do not consider the Kon-Tiki voyage to be scientific proof of Heyerdahl's theory. The possibility of execution does not mean that an event actually took place.
The exact origin of the Polynesians has not yet been clarified, although genetic engineering studies show that islands near New Guinea were settled by people of East Asian descent, apart from the special case of Easter Island .
In July 2020, the results of genetic studies were published showing contact between the East Polynesian islands - especially Easter Island - and South American tribes long before the first Europeans arrived.
reception
Movie
In 2012, the Kon-Tiki expedition was filmed as a feature film in a biographical film drama . In 2012, the Kon-Tiki Museum presented the production and development of the Kon-Tiki film in an extra exhibition .
music
Under the name Kon-Tiki , the instrumental group The Shadows released a guitar piece in 1961 that was listed as No. 1 in the UK charts . In 1980 the German disco group Dschinghis Khan released a song about this topic on their album Rome . The group Fernando Express processed the story of KonTiki in 1991 to the song Farewell Kontiki and released it both as a single and on the album Unter den Sternen des Südens . In 2012 the Dutch DJ Hardwell released a single called Kontiki. Also in 2012, Schiller released the song Kon-Tiki on the album Sonne.
Others
The Swiss watch manufacturer Eterna named a model series KonTiki after all crew members of the raft were equipped with watches of this brand (at the time of the expedition, Eterna was one of the few manufacturers in the world who could supply waterproof watches).
literature
- Thor Heyerdahl: Kon-Tiki. A raft drifts across the Pacific. ISBN 3-550-06860-3 .
- Erik Hesselberg: Kon-Tiki and I , Nymphenburger 1950
- Axel Andersson: A Hero for the Atomic Age: Thor Heyerdahl and the Kon-Tiki Expedition , Peter Lang 2010
Web links
- Kon-Tiki Museum.
- Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki expedition: book, documentary, feature film. Articles about the expedition and media products that resulted from it.
Footnotes
- ↑ Erik Hesselberg: Kon-Tiki and me . Ed .: Anne Karin Hesselberg. Anne Karin Hesselberg, Drobak 2006, ISBN 978-82-996559-3-4 , pp. 36 (Norwegian: Kon-Tiki og jeg . Oslo 1949. Translated by Anne Karin Hesselberg, Rolf Wirth).
- ↑ Thor Heyerdahl: Kon-Tiki. List, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-548-61115-0 , pp. 131 ff. (Special edition of the German original edition from 1949).
- ^ University of Leeds: Genetic study uncovers new path to Polynesia. At: ScienceDaily.com. February 7, 2011 (English).
- ↑ Nature: Native American gene flow into Polynesia predating Easter Island settlement at Nature July 8, 2020 (English)
- ^ Thor Heyerdahl - Kon-Tiki and the value of an oscar.
- ↑ KonTiki. At: eterna.com.