Norwegian Adventurer. Two Beautifully framed Items. A 3 X 5 Photo Signed Thor Heyerdahl 3,3,1971. And a 3X5 Photo of his Ship “Ra” A Most Unusual Item. The Ra Photo Inscribed George Creegan from Thor Heyerdahl 3,3,1971. 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. He became notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition, in which he sailed 8,000 km (5,000 mi) across the Pacific Ocean in a self-built raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands in 1947. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between apparently separate cultures. This was linked to a diffusionist model of cultural development. Heyerdahl subsequently made other voyages designed to demonstrate the possibility of contact between widely separated ancient peoples. He was appointed a government scholar in 1984.