Kon-Tiki Museum
The Kon-Tiki Museum () is a museum in the Bygdøy peninsula in Oslo, Norway. It houses vessels and maps from the "Kon-Tiki" expedition, as well as a library with about 8,000 books. It was opened in a provisional building in 1949. In 1957, the current building—designed by architects F. S. Platou and Otto Torgersen—was opened. In 1978, an extension of the museum designed by Torgersen was opened. The museum was originally built to house the "Kon-Tiki", a raft of balsa wood of pre-Columbian model that Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used to sail  from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. Another boat in the museum is the "Ra II", a vessel built of reeds according to Heyerdahl's perception of an ancient Egyptian seagoing boat. Heyerdahl sailed the "Ra II" from North Africa to the Caribbean after a previous attempt with the reed boat "Ra" failed. Beneath the raft is a model of the whale shark that the crew encountered on the voyage. The Kon-Tiki Museum is situated near several other museums including the Fram Museum, the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, the Viking Ship Museum and the Norwegian Maritime Museum. Kon-Tiki