Die Moai-Statuen wurden tatsächlich zu ihren Plattformen „geführt“ | Dieses uralte Rätsel wurde nicht mit roher Gewalt, sondern mit cleverer Physik gelöst.
https://www.zmescience.com/science/archaeology/the-moai-statues-were-really-walked-to-their-platforms/
9 Kommentare
From the article: The towering Easter Island moai have always stirred wonder and curiosity. But how these massive sculptures got from quarry to platform has long been a mystery. The smaller ones weigh 12-14 tons, while the biggest ones are over 80 tons, making for a logistical nightmare.
For decades, the popular theory was bleak: the islanders, obsessed with their statues, supposedly deforested their island to move the moai using wooden rollers and sledges. This narrative, popularized by authors like Jared Diamond, painted a picture of ecological collapse brought on by cultural obsession.
But a [new study](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305440325002328?via%3Dihub), over a decade in the making, argues for something different. Archaeologists Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt argue that the statues weren’t dragged — they walked.
I would like them to recreate it with the larger 80 tons ones. The smaller one are 12-14 tons, but they tested with a 4.35 metric ton replica.
Not sure why the article uses tons and metric tons instead of keeping it consistent, not that it really matters.
But 4.3 vs 80 could make a difference in being able move it reliability versus launching people.
Still, sounds more feasible than cutting down every tree on the island just to move them.
I swear I heard about this years ago, is this a new finding?
It’s the exact same way i managed to move a huuuuge wardrobe on my own (after trying to drag it on a smooth surface nearly breaking my back). You find the balance point on the short end (the minimum contact patch you can, that connects 2 „corners“), then shimmy it from one side to the other, like you would move a really heavy ladder vertically. With enough people and rope you’d easily move those statues in relatively no time. I do wonder how many they dropped doing it tho, hehe..
Thor Heyerdahl, Norwegian anthropologist, described an experiment with this in the book Aku-Aku from 1957. I didn’t see the linked article mentioning Heyerdahl, and I think it deserves to be remembered.
So as a kid I could have sworn they established this like back in like the 90s based one the narratives of the locals and recreating the walk. I could have sworn I read it in like a Readers digest article of all places.
The fact that it’s being confirmed again amazes me, mostly because I thought it was well understood decades ago.
Im at work so don’t have the time to search the Internet to find evidence. And maybe I just misread the article in the past. I have known for decades though they just used ropes and a rocking motion to walk the stones.
Didn’t the rock come from another island? How did they get them on boats?
Did I accidentally switched from on parallel universe to another or … Is this really new news, as I already saw that theory and a walking statue years (and years) ago?!
> More than that, it gives the Rapanui people their history back. It replaces the tragic myth of a self-destructive, irrational culture with the reality of a resourceful and sophisticated society of engineers. They didn’t foolishly destroy their world for their monuments. They understood physics, they adapted to their environment, and with nothing more than plant fiber and teamwork, they made their ancestors walk.
They always had this history. It was just beyond the comprehension of colonizers who „discovered“ the statues that a society existed that was *not* destructive in nature.
I find this to be more a reflection and judgment on the part of the rest of the world, than the Rapanui people.