The Maldive Mystery Hardcover – September 1, 1986
by Thor Heyerdahl 
 
One of the world's foremost explorers investigates the origins of Maldive history and discovers that the seemingly remote and insignificant islands on the Indian Ocean once formed a crucial crossroads for early pre-European civilizations
 
From Publishers Weekly
When the Maldive Islanders converted to Islam in the 12th century, they discarded or destroyed all traces of earlier cultures, thus denying their past. Recent archeological discoveries prompted the government to invite Heyerdahl to examine the artifacts and attempt a reconstruction of pre-Islamic history. Located in the Indian Ocean southwest of India and west of Sri Lanka, the Maldives encompass two broad, reefless sea passages ("One-and-Half" and Equatorial Channels) well-known to ancient mariners. Heyerdahl, an authority on primitive sea travel (Kon-Tiki, The Ra Expeditions, unravels a mystery that reaches into the vanished civilizations of Sumer and the Indus Valley. The Maldivan artifacts showed that temples were built around A.D. 550; that the original settlers had been sun-worshipers. An important export of the Maldives in ancient times was cowrie shells, found only in the Islands and used as moneythese shells were unearthed in pre-Viking tombs (A.D. 550800) in Sweden! This is heady material for cultural diffusionists. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
 
From Library Journal
This latest Heyerdahl adventure focuses on the Maldives, a group of atolls scattered across the equatorial Indian Ocean. Again, Heyerdahl is following the trail of the "long-ears" (this time without benefit of ancient reconstructed ship), whose traces he found in cultures from the Indus Valley to Easter Island and pre-Columbian Central America. They have apparently surfaced again as primogenitors of the Maldivians. Though digs have only just begun, the Maldive evidence adds to the author's theories concerning the origins and migrations of Neolithic seafarers. The book is standard Heyerdahlalternately repetitive and sketchybut imparting nonetheless a sense of both the thrill and the tedium of archaeological exploration. Jo-Ann D. Suleiman, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Ctr. Lib., Greenbelt, Md.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.
 
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