Posted on 03/18/2018 2:16:18 PM PDT by Aliska
As the director of the Easter Island Statue Project the longest-continuous collaborative artifact inventory ever conducted on the Polynesian island that belongs to Chile Van Tilburg has opened a window on one of the greatest achievements of Pacific prehistory on one of the most remote inhabited islands in the world.
She and her team of resident Rapa Nui have spent nine years locating and meticulously documenting the nearly 1,000 statues on the island, determining their symbolic meaning and function, and conserving them using state-of-the-art techniques.
After spending four months over the last two years excavating two of the statues and posting the results of their digs on the projects website, Van Tilburg was surprised to discover that a large segment of the general public hadnt realized that what they knew only as the Easter Island "heads" actually had bodies.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsroom.ucla.edu ...
The statues appear to be on a hill. Over time, erosion down the hill would bury them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aku-Aku
Aku-Aku: the Secret of Easter Island is a 1957 book by Thor Heyerdahl[1] published in English the following year. The book describes the 19551956 Norwegian Archaeological Expedition’s investigations of Polynesian history and culture at Easter Island, the Austral Islands of Rapa Iti and Raivavae, and the Marquesas Islands of Nuku Hiva and Hiva Oa. Visits to Pitcairn Island, Mangareva and Tahiti are described as well.
...Heyerdahl compared the highest-quality stonework on the island (present in very few cases) to pre-Columbian Amerindian stonework, such as at Tihuanaco. He said of Ahu Vinapu’s retaining wall, “No Polynesian fisherman would have been capable of conceiving, much less building such a wall”.[4]
So theyre actually giant chess pieces?
They brought them to their location and dug them in
Thanks, that makes sense.
I think halfway originally so they couldn't be tipped. They had teenagers,too, you know.
Giants are said to have once roamed the Earth.
Ha!!
What a colossal waste of time and energy. Still pretty amazing, though.
Seems the map I posted shows they were all meant to be placed on platforms around the coastline, those that are half-buried just didn't make it.
Are the quarry sites known?
Thanks!
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/17/opinion/sunday/easter-island-climate-change.html
Sample: "The puzzle arises because when Jacob Roggeveen discovered the island (on Easter Day, 1722, hence the name), it was a wasteland with no trees and a small, starving population. The Polynesian inhabitants had only small and leaky canoes, so it was unclear how they had ever reached the island, let alone built such colossal figures." and
"Scientists and historians have since solved the mystery. The statues, or moai, were built over hundreds of years by Easter Islanders themselves a formerly advanced Polynesian society that was prosperous enough to make ever bigger and more ornate statues. One, still being carved in the quarry when it was abandoned in the 1600s, is 70 feet tall and weighs 270 tons.
"What destroyed this civilization was apparently deforestation in the 1500s and 1600s. The islanders cut down trees for cremation, for firewood, for canoes, for homes and perhaps for devices to move the statues. Rats and beetles may also have contributed to the deforestation."
Article mentions Chariots of the Gods, best seller way back when. I read it. Never put much credence in aliens.
ping
Craftsmore: Thanks presumably ping was to photos.
Mind boggling! I don’t believe the Alien theories, either!
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