Full size of the Moai Statues! (Easter Island)

reply to post by pavil


The uncovered statue was standing at the base of a volcanic cone which had lost most of its vegetation, the soil there eroded,/land shifted down very quickly. As I noted above I could see the difference in the lay of land in just the time between two visits.

reply to post by Hanslune


Thanks, again sorry not to have time to read whole thread.

reply to post by Bonkrh


Yeah they can carve them but how the hell did they move them?

Uphill too....

Originally posted by TruthxIsxInxThexMist
reply to post by Bonkrh

 

Yeah they can carve them but how the hell did they move them?

Uphill too....

Man power

reply to post by Bonkrh


This completely blows my mind. I thought moving them was difficult when I assumed they were just "heads". To see them buried in the ground that deeply is just amazing. Nice find!

The most intriguing aspect of ancient civilizations was their ability to move immense objects. Surely, there is a lost technology which enabled these people to move and erect them.

Originally posted by taderhold
Surely, there is a lost technology which enabled these people to move and erect them.]

Yeah, tree trunks. Where do you think all the trees on the island went?

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke

Originally posted by taderhold
Surely, there is a lost technology which enabled these people to move and erect them.]

Yeah, tree trunks. Where do you think all the trees on the island went?

The key factor in the moving of heavy objects by the ancients (and not so ancients like the Rapa Nui) was not manpower which they usually had lots of, not expertise which they usually had developed over a long period of time, but one aspect that people rarely think about and that was the but development of ROPES and the ability to make large amounts of it - strong enough to handle the tons of weight and not be pulled apart by two hundred guys tugging on it.

'It is in rope that the mastery of the rock is found'

...some dead Greek guy

Ok they're statues, but are they tombs? Is there anything in them? Nephelim; giant sons and daughters of The Fallen? What?

Originally posted by Hanslune

The key factor in the moving of heavy objects by the ancients (and not so ancients like the Rapa Nui) was not manpower which they usually had lots of, not expertise which they usually had developed over a long period of time, but one aspect that people rarely think about and that was the but development of ROPES and the ability to make large amounts of it - strong enough to handle the tons of weight and not be pulled apart by two hundred guys tugging on it.

What is this "rope" technology of which you speak? Surely it is but myth. The ancients mastered it, but it is a lost technology....

Originally posted by FatherLukeDuke

Originally posted by Hanslune

The key factor in the moving of heavy objects by the ancients (and not so ancients like the Rapa Nui) was not manpower which they usually had lots of, not expertise which they usually had developed over a long period of time, but one aspect that people rarely think about and that was the but development of ROPES and the ability to make large amounts of it - strong enough to handle the tons of weight and not be pulled apart by two hundred guys tugging on it.

What is this "rope" technology of which you speak? Surely it is but myth. The ancients mastered it, but it is a lost technology....

'tis a myth but spoken of in the bible - therefore it's both mysterious and the word of the old man in the sky

Ecclesiastes 4:12 speaks of rope as cord

And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken

lol

Its one of the odd things I've noticed about the fringe, they ignore the obvious; there is an upper limit to the weights ancient man could move and that is in the area of around 1000 tons - why is that? Rope technology, later on with the Roman's used iron and bronze wire ropes and chains too.

Rope isn't very 'exciting' when compared to anti-gravity, aliens, Atlantis, etc but it IS the technology that allowed man to move stuff.

SUMMARY OF FACTS
- Statues can weight up to 80 tons
- no trees hundreds of km around, that could have been used to transport huge carvings
- Currently the technical feat cannot be reproduced

CONCLUSION: Lost technology to carry tons of weight possibly hundreds of km away
or most likely "temporary" technology used by higher intelligent beings

Source: Ancient Aliens documentaries and reading...


Watch at 20min.. or any other video about the topic.

Originally posted by pascalt
SUMMARY OF FACTS
- Statues can weight up to 80 tons
- no trees hundreds of km around, that could have been used to transport huge carvings
- Currently the technical feat cannot be reproduced

People with ropes and wooden sleds can move the stones and have done so in demonstrations
Lots of trees around when the Moai were made
Heaviest moved Moai 86 tons, average weight 15

CONCLUSION: Lost technology to carry tons of weight possibly hundreds of km away
or most likely "temporary" technology used by higher intelligent beings

CONCLUSION: failure to research, naive belief in fringe websites and youtube videos

Suggestion; read archaeology reports not fringe websites and poorly research youtube videos
Recommend; take a look at where the heaviest Moai is in relation to the quarry
Note; that Rapa Nui is a small island the longest a Moai was moved was 20 kilometers

The Rapa Nui people were fully capable of making and moving the stones, no 'aliens' needed

reply to post by Hanslune
Great conclusion. It is unfortunate that some of us are unable to believe that our ancient ancestors were intelligent enough to accomplish complex tasks, but on the other hand they can believe that aliens were here thousands of years ago working on our planet.

Originally posted by taderhold
reply to post by Hanslune

 

Great conclusion. It is unfortunate that some of us are unable to believe that our ancient ancestors were intelligent enough to accomplish complex tasks, but on the other hand they can believe that aliens were here thousands of years ago working on our planet.

Howdy Taderhold

Yep, and that brings up the question - who taught the aliens? There are real mysteries about our history but why do so many fringe people focus on such easily debunked material? That question has always vexed me.

The ancients were very clever people - who was the genius who figured out the bow and arrow concept? Unbelievable! musta been aliens....lol, taught a horse to accept a man on its back and learned to ride it, built a boat, figured out how to make glass, melted rocks into metal, learn to pull teeth, cut into the skull, etc

I think I remember hearing that only some of the statues reach this height and size. Most are still only the heads and not the entire body. At least we have examples of how far this society actually achieved with the construction of these though.

Originally posted by Hanslune
Yep, and that brings up the question - who taught the aliens? There are real mysteries about our history but why do so many fringe people focus on such easily debunked material? That question has always vexed me.

These races of beings are sometimes million years ahead of us. Imagine our evolution in the last 2000 years, think about in 1 million.

Seriously it is time to educate yourself, watch some videos from rokkat.com from top scientists, astronauts, ex-military.

Take 1 hour of your time to watch some of these videos before replying denying it please

However I agree that it sounds like these statues could have been 100% without help, it just seems unlikely to me for at least some of these statues.

I don't buy it, but that's just my opinion. I neither completely doubt it either, though.

There are 887 Moai on the island. Some have long chests, some have shoulders, two even have legs. It is speculated that they might have been constructed to bring homage to the dead deified ancestors of the Polynesians. "They are built of hard volcanic rock, no-one knows how they were carved out and placed into position. The biggest moai is one that was unfinished. If it were completed, its size would have been 21 meters tall and up to 270 tons."

I don't buy it because the island is small, the numbers exceed well over 100-200-500 monolithic carvings. If there were only 10 on the island, we would still be astounded. They used their resources, and then died out as a result. Surely a civilization that was capable of such beautiful petroglyphs and carvings would have had more sense? It just seems like an absolutely massive task. It's not there were was 50,000+ people living on the island.

It is daunting to imagine a voyage to Easter Island from any direction, which would have taken a minimum of two weeks, covering several thousand miles of seemingly endless ocean.

When Europeans first explored the Pacific and sailed from island to island, they noticed that the people of various islands, no matter how distant, had similar customs. Inhabitants looked similar in appearance and they were often able to understand each other, even though they came from islands thousands of miles apart.

These linguistic links point to a genealogical bond that ties the people of the Pacific to one another. Indeed, in 1994, DNA from 12 Easter Island skeletons was found to be Polynesian.

"According to Thor Heyerdahl, people from a pre-Inca society took to the seas from Peru and voyaged east to west, sailing in the prevailing westerly trade winds. He believes they may have been aided, in an El Niño year, when the course of the winds and currents may have hit Rapa Nui directly from South America. In 1947, Heyerdahl himself showed that it was possible, at least in theory; using a balsa raft named Kon Tiki, he drifted 4,300 nautical miles for three months and finally ran aground on a reef near the Polynesian island of Puka Puka.

There is little data to support Heyerdahl. Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilburg, who is unconvinced by Heyerdahl's theory, notes that "all archaeological, linguistic, and biological data" point to Polynesian origins in Southeast Asia."


Wall at Ahu Vinapu, Easter Island


Wall at Machu Picchu, Peru

So, how to explain the superb stonework? It may be that the Polynesians sailed as far as South America in their migratory explorations, and then, some time later, turned around and returned to the south Pacific, carrying the sweet potato with them. Or perhaps there were visits from Peruvians who brought the sweet potato and their skilled understanding of stone masonry with them.

"Graham Hancock points out that Ra, the name of the Egyptian sun god, appears frequently in connection with Easter Island’s sacred architecture, its mythical past, and its cosmology. Raa means ‘sun’ in the island’s language. There were clans called Raa, Hitti-ra (sunrise), and Ura-o-Hehe (red setting sun), the crater lakes are named Rano Kao, Rano Aroi, and Rano Raraku, and Ahu Ra’ai was aligned to two volcanic peaks to act as a marker and observatory for the path of the sun on the December solstice."

"Katherine Routledge was taken to a northwest facing cave near Ahu Tahi and told it had been ‘a place where priests taught constellations and the ways of the stars to apprentices’.

Near the eastern extremity of the Poike headland she was shown a large flat rock called papa ui hetu’u, or ‘rock where they watched the stars’, incised with a spiral design. Nearby there is another engraved stone on which 10 cup-shaped depressions are visible, which are said to have represented a star map.3

At Orongo, on the edge of Rano Kau crater, there are four small holes pecked through the bedrock just beside an ahu. Detailed observations at the solstices and equinoxes showed that the four holes constituted a sun-observation device.

"An Easter Island legend about the god-king Hotu Matua says:

‘He came down from heaven to earth ... He came in the ship ...’"

Other noteworthy examples of exquisite craftsmanship are popoi pounders which, says Heyerdahl, "were so perfectly formed and balanced, with the slender lines, graceful curves and high polish that our engineers refused to believe that such work possible without the modern lathe."

He also mentions examples of exquisitely fashioned basalt fish hooks, which the first European explorers never saw being used and which the natives refused to part with.4

These have not been found on other Polynesian islands.



To carve the moai statues, huge amounts of rock had to be hacked away around each one of them. In theory, this work could have been done using the basalt picks that have been found in abundance at the Rano Raraku quarry – though no one in modern times has felt like demonstrating how a complete statue can be carved by such arduous and primitive means.



"The possibility that more advanced tools and methods were used at certain times for some of this immense labor cannot be ruled out.

Although the platforms are mainly composed of unworked basalt blocks, many have retaining walls made of skillfully cut and fitted blocks. Carving these slabs would have been a tremendous undertaking, and this also applies to the shaping and boring of the basalt hare-paenga foundation blocks, the carving of basalt statues, the cutting away of basalt to make the roads, and the carving of several thousand petroglyphs in relief on tough basalt rock."

The working of basalt poses problems of an altogether different magnitude than the softer volcanic rock found at Rano Raraku. What tools were used for this purpose? And have any experiments been conducted to test the proposed methods, as in the case of statue carving, raising, and transportation?

John Flenley and Paul Bahn argue that although there are still plenty of questions to be answered about Easter Island, there are no genuine mysteries, though the book is called "The Enigmas of Easter Island". Interestingly, the problem of working basalt does not merit a single mention anywhere in their book.

When asked by email how the basalt was cut, John Flenley said he had no idea, and Paul Bahn replied:

A good question, and one which, I think, has never really been tried out with experiments. Obviously the basalt can only have been worked with stone of equal or greater hardness, which can only mean basalt from the island.

"But as Macmillan Brown pointed out, most ahu blocks are ‘of a vesicular basalt that European masons would find hard to work even with tools toughened by admixture of the rare metals’. Believing however that the masons had nothing but clumsy stone tools at their disposal, he says that each of the scores of immense shaped stones, weighing from 2 to 20 tons, ‘must have taken a workman with his stone implements, aided by sand and water, years to cut and groove’."

Remember, there are 887 of them sitting, mounted, or simply unfinished or broken apart.

"It seems unlikely, though, that such skilled work would have been undertaken with such patently inadequate tools. The reason no one has ever conducted any experiments to see whether basalt can be precision-cut using basalt tools is very simple: no one is dumb enough to even try!"

"The Poike ditch is a deep and possibly entirely artificial ditch separating the eastern headland from the rest of the island. Although largely filled with silt today, it has a rectangular bottom, 3.7 m deep, about 12.2 m wide, and is about 3.5 km long. The tough basaltic rock removed could easily have supplied building blocks for all the platforms on the island with cyclopean masonry. Ahu Tahiri, Ahu Tongariki, and many more platforms were constructed from blocks of black basalt of a similar type. The ditch was a considerable feat of excavation, and is unlikely to have been chipped out with small basalt picks."

The island could have received settlers or visitors from both east and west on many occasions. There is clear evidence of different phases of development in statue carving and platform construction, and the insistence that all the archaeological remains must be crammed into a history spanning just 1500 years is theory-driven. The rongorongo phenomenon is also difficult to fit into conventional theories about Easter Island.

As Heyerdahl says:

‘Nobody could tell what kind of monuments and information a coat of soil as high as a house might still conceal'

Francis Mazière put it in a nutshell:

‘The ground of this island will have to be dug deep to discover the true beginnings ...’

During excavations at Rano Raraku, Katherine Routledge noted that thin lines of charcoal, resulting from grass or brushwood fires, were found at various depths and marked old land surfaces, subsequently covered by later landslips. These successive descents of earth and debris made it virtually impossible to apply stratigraphic dating, which is based on the principle: the deeper the layer, the older it is.

(Go back a page for beginning)

Heyerdahl’s belief that the finest statues were carved and erected on platforms during the ‘middle period’ was partly based on his interpretation of radiocarbon dates of 1467 and 1206 for two charcoal samples from mounds of quarry cuttings on the flanks of Rano Raraku. However, as geologist Christian O’Brien points out, a section through the mound ‘shows clear evidence of land slip formation with some added dumping of coarse stone debris’. He thought it quite conceivable that charcoal from a fire which occurred in the mid-19th century, by reason of one earth tremor, could have been buried deep beneath stone-chippings from an age a thousand years earlier.

He concludes that the erect statues were in place when the charcoal was formed from which the samples were taken:

‘Their carving, then, pre-dates 1476 A.D. ± 100 years, and this is the only deduction that can be made from the evidence.’

Francis Mazière, too, distinguishes between two periods of sculpture. He believed that many of the statues at Rano Raraku, including nearly all the raised statues at the foot of the volcano, belonged to the first period. During a huge excavation at Rano Raraku, he uncovered two 10-m statues, undamaged by erosion, which were completely white and very highly polished.



"The wings of the nose and the trace of the muscles in the upper lip were handled with striking delicacy and technical skill. Their elegant hands, joined at the height of the navel, in a meditating posture, ended in prodigiously long, tapering nails. The top of their heads was very narrow and clearly not designed for a cylindrical red hat. More such statues were subsequently uncovered.

There are also marked differences among the Rano Raraku statues themselves: in general, the statues inside the crater are smaller and less carefully made than those on the outer slope. Mazière wrote that on the outer slope ‘the great majority of the sculptures are very highly finished, whereas those on the crater side are decadent – much coarser: they are the work of another set of people altogether’."

Referring to the statues standing at the foot of the volcano, Mazière wrote:

How long have they stood there? And why are some of them carved from a different stone, one unweathered by the wind? For there they are, unchanged by rain, wind or sand, while others are eaten away and covered with moss.

The natives say,

‘The ones lichen does not grow on are still alive.’

"In Heyerdahl’s view, the platform masonry of the ‘middle period’ shows neither the technical perfection nor the artistry of the earlier masons. The main aim was to create strong platforms capable of supporting ever taller and heavier statues, in the quickest and most practical way possible.

But again there is an incongruity in his position, because although the platform builders of the middle period used small, easily moved and usually uncut stone,

‘their work with statue bases, statues, and topknots shows skill and willingness to handle large stones at least equal to that of the Early Period’.

The orthodox position is that the finest masonry dates from the latter part of the ‘middle period’ (1100-1680). However, the shoddy semi-pyramidal platforms were certainly a very late development, and it is highly unlikely that the finest platform masonry dates from the same period. Even with metal tools the very precise cutting of such tough basalt would have been a tremendous achievement, and the later natives are not known to have had any metal tools."

"Conventional researchers proclaim that it is ‘insulting’ and even ‘racist’ to suggest that the Polynesian ancestors of the present islanders were not responsible for all the archaeological wonders we admire today. But emotive name-calling hardly amounts to a rational argument.

It is commonly said that no volcanic activity has taken place during the human occupation of Easter Island, since the island’s folklore contains no references to this phenomenon. However, during the Chilean expedition of March 1936, some islanders did in fact relate a legend that an ancient race had been wiped out by a cataclysmic eruption of two sacred volcanoes.

Geologists think a minor volcanic eruption may have taken place only 12,000 years ago, but there have been many large-scale eruptions over the past few hundred thousand years."

"In some of the ahus the irregularities in shape of the faces of the colossal polygonal stones that meet one another are so cut that the surfaces exactly fit together, like those at Cuzco in Peru and Cosa in Etruria. There was no mortar to fill gaps, and the extremely hard stones must have been cut and tooled to exact measurement with great precision in order to fit so well.

How could primitive artisans have worked these stones so beautifully – or at all?