The mystical magical easter island

LaPalida

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Hey guys,

Well got into a discussion with a co-worker this week over Easter Island. He claims that we don't know how the statues were erected and that it's all a big mystery... that we with all our technology of the cranes we couldn't erect even one... he saw it on TV. I told him that we knew how they did it (using wood that used to grow on the island etc). He remains unconviced. Does anyone have a good credible link or something so that I can send it to him to show him that he is wrong? Some kind of video of people moving the statue? A consensus of the anthropologists and/or archaeologists on this issue?

All I have so far is a wiki link with: "It is not known exactly how the moai were moved but the process almost certainly required human energy, ropes, wooden sledges and/or rollers. Another theory is that the moai may have been "walked" by rocking them forward. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_PavelPavel Pavel and his successful experiment showed that only 17 people with ropes are needed for relatively fast transportation of the statues)."

Any help is appreciated :)
 
LaPalida said:
that we with all our technology of the cranes we couldn't erect even one...
Click to expand...
What?
We can send a space shuttle into orbit and back... but your coworker thinks we can't erect a statue?

Please tell me his job doesn't involve anyone else's safety in any way.
 
Of course we don't know exactly how the ancient Easter Islanders did it, because there are no records. And your colleague is correct in that cranes don't work for the moai because they are so heavy.
However, modern Easter Island people showed Thor Heyerdahl how it was done, and modern scientists have worked it out - Jared Diamond explains it thoroughly in pages 99-102 of Collapse.

If you go to the 'Search Inside this book' feature (here), type in Rano Raraku as the search words, and click on page 99, and start reading near the bottom of the page where it starts "How did all those Easter Islanders, lacking cranes, succeed in carving, transporting, and erecting those statues?" and it'll let you page forward two pages, so you can read most of it (pages 99- 101). Then search again, typing in van Tilburg as the search words, and select page 102, to read the rest.

Hope that's helpful.
 
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Whatever happened to that link to the retired carpenter in Flint, Michigan, who was single-handedly building a stone henge in his back yard? He didn't even use pulleys to move & erect several-thousand-pound blocks.
 
Beady said:
Whatever happened to that link to the retired carpenter in Flint, Michigan, who was single-handedly building a stone henge in his back yard? He didn't even use pulleys to move & erect several-thousand-pound blocks.
Click to expand...


I'm pretty sure he wasn't using pulleys/winches. And I don't know what he's up to
 
ioa.ucla.edu/eisp/history/transport/transport.htm is mostly a study on the transport of the statues from the quarries to the raising points, but the last picture is an excellent example of raising a statue using only materials available to those peoples. They build a stone ramp and haul the statue up it, then add weight to the top and tip the big bugger into an upright position. No aliens required.
 
Da Kanakas get da mana. Eat plenny poi and muscles all get ikaika

No need fo aliens, boo

Menehunes wen carve em up, den dey call one Samoan fo lift em up.

No mystery. Theres often some subtle little stupid undercurrent of " nah, those brown people couldnt have done this on their own"

Forget the statues, think of how hard it would have been back then to even GET to that island. Remember, the euros were landhuggers at the time.
 
derail:
Checkout the (fiction) dvd 'Rapa Nui' AKA 'Ripper Nudie'
for some great air bags.

back on track:
Seems that their obsession with erecting these big stones was part of their economic downfall.
 
How long before he says that the locals couldn't have done it either?
 
Wow! I just can't get over that site. Talk about physics at work. What's really sad is that we're looking at highschool physics, it's something everyone should know and be able to grasp, even if they can't work out the math of it. Sometimes it seems like the woo crowd (and well, all of us really) tend to get so wrapped up in all the new technology and gizmos and gadgets, that they forget the very basic principles on which things work. And so we end up with pyramids built by flying saucers, and beam weapons being used on the WTC...

Ah well, at least there are people like him out there doing their best to teach people.
 
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