Easter Island statue lying beside 'road' - were the statues easier to move along a deliberately rock-scattered surface?
Posted on 05/12/2010 2:03:18 PM PDT by decimon
Archaeologists have disproved the fifty-year-old theory underpinning our understanding of how the famous stone statues were moved around Easter Island
Archaeologists have disproved the fifty-year-old theory underpinning our understanding of how the famous stone statues were moved around Easter Island.
Fieldwork led by researchers at University College London and The University of Manchester, has shown the remote Pacific island's ancient road system was primarily ceremonial and not solely built for transportation of the figures.
A complex network of roads up to 800-years-old crisscross the Island between the hat and statue quarries and the coastal areas.
Laying alongside the roads are dozens of the statues- or moai.
The find will create controversy among the many archaeologists who have dedicated years to finding out exactly how the moai were moved, ever since Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl first published his theory in 1958.
Heyerdahl and subsequent researchers believed that statues he found lying on their backs and faces near the roads were abandoned during transportation by the ancient Polynesians.
But his theory has been completely rejected by the team led by Manchester's Dr Colin Richards and UCL's Dr Sue Hamilton.
Instead, their discovery of stone platforms associated with each fallen moai - using specialist 'geophysical survey' equipment – finally confirms a little known 1914 theory of British archaeologist Katherine Routledge that the routes were primarily ceremonial avenues.
The statues, say the Manchester and UCL team just back from the island, merely toppled from the platforms with the passage of time.
"The truth of the matter is, we will never know how the statues were moved," said Dr Richards.
"Ever since Heyerdahl, archeologists have come up with all manner of theories – based on an underlying assumption that the roads were used for transportation of the moai, from the quarry at the volcanic cone Rano Raraku.
"What we do now know is that the roads had a ceremonial function to underline their religious and cultural importance.
"They lead – from different parts of the island – to the Rano Raraku volcano where the Moai were quarried.
"Volcano cones were considered as points of entry to the underworld and mythical origin land Hawaiki.
"Hence, Rano Ranaku was not just a quarry but a sacred centre of the island."
The previous excavation found that the roads are concave in shape –making it difficult to move heavy objects along them
And as the roads approach Rano Raraku, the statues become more frequent – which the team say, indicated an increasing grades of holiness.
"All the evidence strongly shows that these roads were ceremonial - which backs the work of Katherine Routledge from almost 100 years ago, " said Dr Sue Hamilton.
"It all makes sense: the moai face the people walking towards the volcano.
"The statues are more frequent the closer they are to the volcano – which has to be way of signifying the increasing levels of importance."
She added: "What is shocking is that Heyerdahl actually found some evidence to suggest there were indeed platforms.
"But like many other archaeologists, he was so swayed by his cast iron belief that the roads were for transportation – he completely ignored them."
###
NOTES FOR EDITORS
Routledge and her husband arrived at Easter Island in 1914, to publish her findings in a popular travel book, The Mystery of Easter Island in 1919.
Geophysical surveys are used to create subsurface maps by passing electrical currents below the ground and measuring its resistance.
High quality images are available.
Drs Hamilton and Richards are available for comment
For media enquires contact: Mike Addelman Media Relations Officer Faculty of Humanities The University of Manchester 0161 275 0790 07717 881 567 michael.addelman@manchester.ac.uk
Canals?
Could that explain why the “roads” were concave?
Edgar Cayce said the ancients knew how to make rock float....
I was just going to post the better video. THanks for posting the link. Wallington has an interesting method.
Then there is this guy in Michigan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK1Rzch89Dw
Watch this and then wonder what is all the “mystery?”
Mud can be slippery.
|
|
|||
Gods |
Thanks decimon and fanfan. |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
That’s just brilliant :)
And so simple...
Someone should tell Däniken ;)
Wouldn’t work for obelisks I suppose, but our ancestors were no DUmmies.
get this: the natives say they walked to where they are.......
Easter Island statue lying beside 'road' - were the statues easier to move along a deliberately rock-scattered surface?
Things were different in their day. (Visualize...they could see stars all the way down to the water line on the horizon.)
But you said it so well.
But, But, But, it's not like anything was carved in stone...
and
And as the roads approach Rano Raraku, the statues become more frequent – which the team say, indicated an increasing grades of holiness.
Leads this non archeologist to believe that you find more statues near the quarry cuz they were big, heavy s.o.b.s that took a lot to move, not because the site was more holy.
Agree. I had the same thought as I read that.
Of course, we don't get a professional publication for our theories.
Mapping prehistoric statue roads
on Easter Island
http://www.csulb.edu/~clipo/papers/LipoAndHunt-2005.pdf
with maps and photographs
Ugliest caryatids, EVER!
Oh, come on!
You just keep digging sand and piling it under rear end, so that it’s always sliding downhill under its own weight, until you get it where it’s going.
Getting it uphill is a bit trickier....
*<];-’)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.