The enigmatic Moai statues of Easter Island, known as Rapa Nui, have long captured the imagination of scholars and visitors alike. Recent research has clarified how these massive stone figures were transported across the island. To provide new insights into this historical puzzle Carl Lipo, a researcher in the Department of Anthropology at Binghamton University, and Terry Hunt from the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona, orchestrated an experiment that moved a 4.35-ton replica Moai statue 328 feet in 40 minutes, using only 18 people. This attempt marks an improvement over prior methods that involved the horizontal dragging of the statues.
The replica used for the trial incorporated the forward-lean design characteristic of the Moai figures. Lipo and his team hypothesized that these design features - specifically, the wide D-shaped bases and forward tilt - enabled the statues to "walk" using a controlled rocking motion. This hypothesis was tested using a replica model, moved in a zigzag manner with ropes, reported Los Andes.
"Every time they move a statue, it seems they are making a path. The path is part of the movement of the statue... So they're spending a lot of time on the road part," said Carl Lipo, explained by Popular Science. This insight suggests that the roads of Rapa Nui were integral to the transportation of these statues, often moved along pathways approximately 14 feet wide with a concave cross-section to facilitate stability.
The researchers employed high-resolution 3D modeling alongside field experiments. In addition to the replica, they closely studied 962 other Moai, focusing on the structures that remained toppled along these specially constructed roads. This study elucidates a method less resource-intensive and damaging than previous explanations of dragging the statues horizontally over felled logs.
The Moai statues, also known as the Easter Island heads, were crafted by the Rapa Nui people between 1250 and 1650 CE. These multi-ton megaliths weigh between 12 and 80 tons. Traditional theories, like Jared Diamond's 2005 proposition involving the use of felled trees as rollers, have been robustly challenged by Lipo and Hunt's findings.
The roads over which the statues were moved indicate an understanding of both engineering and physics by the indigenous Rapa Nui. "The physics makes sense. What we saw experimentally actually works," said Lipo. This sentiment reaffirms that moving the statues in a zigzag pattern along inwardly curved paths is consistent with both oral histories and physical evidence found on the island, thus countering the skepticism of older hypotheses.
"This shows how smart the Rapa Nui people are. We have a lot to learn from them," added Lipo. This technique not only emphasizes the clever solutions employed by the creators of the Moai but also sheds light on the sophistication of their culture.
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