Easter Island discovery: Experts unravel mystery of ancient statues

a reply to: Hanslune

The unfinished, 69 foot high Moai would have been 270 tons:

Largest Moai

Out of the 877 Moai made on Rapa Nui it is the largest.

Interesting that Wikipedia describes the wall made of 7 ton basalt blocks
without mortar as being 'superficially' similar to those found in Peru,
but it isn't close, they are exactly the same style and fit the same
as those found in Peru and Bolivia, a human hair cannot go through
the joints they are so tight. In order to carve basalt a material
harder than 7 on the mohs scale is required.

originally posted by: ThatDidHappen
a reply to: Hanslune

The unfinished, 69 foot high Moai would have been 270 tons:

Howdy

You might want to find a real scientific source for that number. A contest website isn't a good source. I've noticed a number of websites using that number but it appears to have no basis, no citation, you might want to spend the time to obtain some factual data. 21.6 meter high you mean?

Now how about this-this is a lot more authoritative but still not from a scientific report - perhaps you can find one? May I suggest you find the work Van Tilburg who did extensive work on 887 of the Moai.

Moai range in size from a height of less than 1.5 meters (4.9 ft) to around 10 meters (33 ft) tall. The tallest moai erected, called Paro, was 9.2 meters (30 ft) high and weighed 82 tons; the largest that fell while being erected was 9.94 meters (32.6 ft); and the largest (unfinished) moai, found at the Rano Raraku Quarry and named El Gigante, would have been 21.6 meters (71 ft) tall with a weight of about 145-165 tons (160-182 metric tons).

Hey even Wikipedia doesn't agree with you....

www.newworldencyclopedia.org...

Interesting that Wikipedia describes the wall made of 7 ton basalt blocks
without mortar as being 'superficially' similar to those found in Peru,
but it isn't close, they are exactly the same style and fit the same
as those found in Peru and Bolivia, a human hair cannot go through
the joints they are so tight. In order to carve basalt a material
harder than 7 on the mohs scale is required.

No you can use a rock of the same hardness to smash it - this is the same technique that was used in a number of other civilizations to work hard stone along with abrasives.

I presume what you are mislabeling as a wall is actually an ahu? Is that correct?

Human hair huh? I've seen those ahu, some of the work is quite fine but human hair nope.

Is the one you are talking about"



Close up of the interesting part




www.researchgate.net... tures/links/54d87d860cf24647581a8364.pdf

originally posted by: ThatDidHappen
a reply to: Hanslune

The unfinished, 69 foot high Moai would have been 270 tons:

Largest Moai

Out of the 877 Moai made on Rapa Nui it is the largest.

Interesting that Wikipedia describes the wall made of 7 ton basalt blocks
without mortar as being 'superficially' similar to those found in Peru,
but it isn't close, they are exactly the same style and fit the same
as those found in Peru and Bolivia, a human hair cannot go through
the joints they are so tight. In order to carve basalt a material
harder than 7 on the mohs scale is required.

Moh's scale can't be used to determine what stone can be used to carve what stone. This is because stone isn't typically homogeneous. Crystalline structures of stone cause cleavage regardless of how hard the crystals are.

There are several kinds of basalt too. That's about my limit of knowledge concerning basalt though, other than what samples of it I've seen have been very fine-grained and so would probably cleave easier than some other stone.

I do know plenty of ancient people carved it - using stone.

Harte

a reply to: SLAYER69


In Maori history it states that their were a lot more Islands in the Pacific at one time, which makes me think that a deluge happened a lot more recently than presently believed, as Knowledge of voyaging canoes still exist, but contact with the other Islands seems to have been lost. Where once New Zealand greenstone was traded throughout the Pacific. In at least European times it had stopped. Whereas in Tonga up till recently Navigating to Islands by the stars was still being taught.

a reply to: anonentity

In Maori history it states that their were a lot more Islands in the Pacific at one time

I'm sure you have a source, but have you heard the one about Maui? New Zealand wasn't there before he came along.
www.newzealand.com...

The Hawaiian version is very similar (I like it better). But Pele showed up then and went island hopping.

Scorpio. Maui's fishhook.

originally posted by: ThatDidHappen
a reply to: Jess_Undefined



There are megalithic walls,
composed of basalt, at
Vnu, again surpassing the
skill of the Polynesians.

Brien Forester has a new
video about this. Experts insist
these walls are built by the
Polynesians but clearly could
not have been built by them
but were built by an ancient
culture.

I found a pretty good article on that wall.

imaginaisladepascua.com...

It's a pretty impressive wall, and with the similarities, hard to imagine they locals came up with the idea entirely on their own.

It could be as simple as a few people on the Island having visited the Inca, and getting the idea from seeing their walls.

originally posted by: Hanslune

As I pointed out, the front of the Moai show arms and long fingers grasping the
hip - the same style used only in Peru and Bolivia in particular the statue in
Tiwanaku near the Sun Gate.

Well no its a rather common technique for those who lack the artistic ability and materials to crave separate arms and hands. The earliest use of the that technique is at Gobekli Tepe itself dating back about 10,000 years before the Polynesians showed up on EI

www.ancient-origins.net...

So.... an art style that shows up in the time frame of very ancient antiquity. Right where the alternative thinkers want it to be?

The idea of contact isn't a huge stretch for a culture that had to be skilled at oceanic sailing in order to arrive at Rapa Nui in the first place. If they could sail that far to colonize, then they could probably sail that far to trade also.

It isn't hard to conclude the quarryers, carvers,
presenters of the Moai were the same civilization that built Machu Piccu,
where one can still see 500 year old Inca repairs of the more ancient
structures.

Well no the Inca were late to the party and no the Inca built MP despite the fervent wishes of certain alternative deep thinkers.

If you're talking about that big wall, then yeah. It does make more sense for the Inca to build it. (Or at least be the ones who gave the locals the idea.)

a reply to: Phage


Yes and the North Island looks very much like a fish, Coincidence.? Or did someone at some time work out the latitudes and longitudes good enough to make a map. I love a good mystery. The Polynesians were the greatest navigators that's a fact.

a reply to: anonentity

Far ahead of their European contemporaries. They were, after all, sailing trans-oceanic catamarans. Explorers and settlers.

That ownership thing was something new and strange. The alii were, after all. Devine.

a reply to: bloodymarvelous


An engineering friend who went diving a lot came back to work one weekend and swore they had seen a wall in the sea off the east coast, north of Auckland .I said are you sure? the reply was "Without a doubt" knowing the guy, I'm pretty sure he saw a wall. No more details and never spoke of it again. I don't blame him.

a reply to: anonentity

Did it keep the asylum seekers out?

I wonder.

a reply to: Phage


I doubt it , its all a bit of a legal fiction, perhaps if someone is brave enough to sail vast distances to get to someplace they should be allowed to stay, because if they were of bad character the sea would have found them out and dealt with them anyway.

a reply to: anonentity

The Polynesians were fierce warriors. Not much for building walls though, except as foundations for their hale. Of course, the introduction of cattle led to changes.

originally posted by: bloodymarvelous

It's a pretty impressive wall, and with the similarities, hard to imagine they locals came up with the idea entirely on their own.

Yeah nobody would come up with idea to put blocks of rectangular rocks together to make a platform something every single rock working culture and civilization in the world also came up with the folks on Rapa Nui wouldn't have been able to figure out.....

It could be as simple as a few people on the Island having visited the Inca, and getting the idea from seeing their walls.

When exactly would they have done that? Compare when the Inca existed and the EI stopped voyaging.

The Inca would have FIRST reached the sea around circa 1463 AD, now someone else might have voyaged out there but not the Inca.

originally posted by: Hanslune

Well no its a rather common technique for those who lack the artistic ability and materials to crave separate arms and hands. The earliest use of the that technique is at Gobekli Tepe itself dating back about 10,000 years before the Polynesians showed up on EI

So.... an art style that shows up in the time frame of very ancient antiquity. Right where the alternative thinkers want it to be?

No it a solution to common problem and runs through all civilizations and cultures who lacked the ability to do statues with proper arms and hands. Again before you get all misty eye think about the difference in time....

The idea of contact isn't a huge stretch for a culture that had to be skilled at oceanic sailing in order to arrive at Rapa Nui in the first place.

Yeah like hunter gathers located in the center of the Middle East 10,500 years before anyone arrived at EI being involved in how rocks would be carved...lol

originally posted by: Harte

I do know plenty of ancient people carved it - using stone.

Harte

You think... not know. You are very self-assertive aren't you? It's very cringe, give it a rest.

a reply to: Phage

Trump should just smash a few rocks together and he'd have a wall that would last generations.

originally posted by: Xabi87

originally posted by: Harte

I do know plenty of ancient people carved it - using stone.

Harte

You think... not know. You are very self-assertive aren't you? It's very cringe, give it a rest.

Why? Am I disturbing your self-delusions?
Ancient Egyptian carved basalt vase - Predynastic. Link.

Just because YOU don't know something, that certainly doesn't mean NOBODY knows it.

Harte

a reply to: Harte
There is no way you know how they built those things, you may have a theory like everyone else but you do not know.


Nobody knows anything for certain, especially when it comes to our history. Archeology is still pretty much in it's infancy, it only got going as we know it today in the 1800's. We will never be 100% certain about how the ancients actually built all these stone monuments because we can't go back in time and ask them, so all we have are a few remains and some theories on how they were built.

originally posted by: Xabi87

Really you seem very certain about your opinions.....

Nobody knows anything for certain, especially when it comes to our history.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

I know nobody will recreate it because in my opinion it's impossible. So that means that the theory that it was built with those tools is false. For me to believe in very unbelievable theories such as Egyptians building granite works of art by pounding with stones, i need HARD evidence.

You seem somewhat conflicted. How can you be so sure something is false if we don't know anything for certain?

It looks like you want it both ways - or one way for yourself and anther for others.

a reply to: Harte


The problem I have with the basalt vases is their great sophistication, which means a social system was in place which gave people the time to create them. Which requires organisation and a stable infra structure. Just like Globekli tepi that sort of society was not supposed to have been around then. It didn't just appear overnight their has to be some sort of evolution up to it. Then at a certain stage it takes off.
Like Eater Island arriving in voyaging Canoes, establishing a society requires more than one canoe. Plus a previous know how on how to quarry and erect big stones and then move them. This hasn't happened on other Islands, so it begs the question did the Polynesians construct the Polygonal wall or did someone before them?. Time passes and tales change in the telling. Either way to do such vast distances under sail means that they must have had a good knowledge of the Trade winds, Theirs one that blows you east and one that blows you west they knowing where to pick them up gives them another whole set of knowledge and the question on where they got it from.

originally posted by: anonentity

Plus a previous know how on how to quarry and erect big stones and then move them.

Why? Lots of cultures and groups figured it out all by themselves - Polynesians were working stone well before they arrived on EI. Look up Polynesian temples, Hawaiian Heiau and Papohaku, and the what the Maori did too.

This hasn't happened on other Islands, so it begs the question did the Polynesians construct the Polygonal wall or did someone before them?.

No one shows up in the archaeological record on EI

Time passes and tales change in the telling. Either way to do such vast distances under sail means that they must have had a good knowledge of the Trade winds, Theirs one that blows you east and one that blows you west they knowing where to pick them up gives them another whole set of knowledge and the question on where they got it from.

Why do you find it impossible they figured it out themselves - if so then who taught the ones who taught them? lol