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
Easter bunnies ping.
what alternative is there to moving on a road? none i would think.
humans are very resourceful
lol.
If the roads weren’t used for the statues, then they were only used for trucks?
Canals, helicopters, cross country.
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 beleive 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.
I watched that movie repeatedly just for Sandrine Holt. ;-D
I saw this documentary where a team of archeologists tried to raise a small Egyptian-type obelisk using only contemporary equipment. When that failed, they used modern pulleys. When that failed, they had to admit their theories were wrong. What am I saying? I don’t know.
If they were tossed haphazardly, yes. If they all have the same orientation(facing people on the road, facing a common location, etc...), perhaps not.
I’d hit it.
I think I know what you're trying to say, so allow me put it in to words:
"The so-called 'experts' don't have a freaking clue how these giant obelisks and boulders were moved." And I don't either.
I love Asian/Eurasian women...
‘the roads were concave in shape making it difficult to move heavy objects along them’
making me believe the heavy objects pushed down the road made the road concave.
levitation
.
Yet another example of why nobody should ever take these types of “scientific theories” seriously.
Sounds highly academic to me. Professors pimping for dollars. Studying meaningless minutiae.
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