I can’t remember how old I was when I discovered Thor Heyerdahl, but I remember being deeply impressed. Here was a radical new approach to archaeology. This guy wasn’t pottering away in some dusty museum office, or scrabbling around in the dirt looking for tiny bones with a tiny brush. No. This guy was doing it himself. He was living history! And he was doing it by making boats out of sticks and growing enormous beards! I wanted to be him.
It takes an almost mythical beard to overcome the ridiculousness of that hat.
