Why moai statues were built

All the carvings were made from singular pieces of volcanic rock and would have been crafted using crude basalt stone picks. Needless to say, each one would have taken considerable time to complete. We and our partners use cookies to better understand your needs, improve performance and provide you with personalised content and advertisements. To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK".

Sign Up. Travel Guides. Videos Beyond Hollywood Hungerlust Pioneers of love. Harry Stewart. What are they? When were they built? How big are they? How many are there? Why were they built? Why did they all fall over?

Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl together with Pavel Pavel were the first ones to experiment with this transportation theory and did so with a 9 ton ancient statue in First they only dragged a statue on the ground, one side at a time. This took lots of time and energy without much result. Later they attached ropes also to the head to be able to make it tilt while turning, and the statue moved with much greater ease.

A 5 ton replica was moved by a group of 30 people. This experiment received great attention world-wide through a National Geographic report. That aliens made the moai statues is a quite common belief. Though, according to oral legends the Rapa Nui people made the statues. Also, the further away statues are from the statue quarry Rano Raraku and the higher the elevation of their final destination, the smaller the statues are, because people had to drag them there.

The moai hats actually represent topknots - hair, tied up like a ball on top of the head, called pukao in Rapa Nui. The mana supernatural powers was according to ancient beliefs preserved in the hair, which is why chieftains never cut their hair. Below are three different accounts that tell how the moai hats were put in place on top of the statues.

The three people who originally told these stories Tori, Huhu Kahu and Veriamo were all born before , before the ancient Rapa Nui culture reached its end, which makes these accounts a valuable and reliable resource.

Most elders have a collection of these in their homes and big quantities are scattered at museums all over the world. The usage of these stones would be anything that would require a sharp edge, such as cutting fibers for clothing, house building, mats, ropes etc , carving wooden sculptures or rongo-rongo , as well as for spear points. It's a common misunderstanding that all of these stones were used for warfare. If this translation was to be true, it would mean that basically every archaeological find at Rapa Nui would be a weapon, which obviously isn't realistic.

Even a dedicated matato'a , war chief , would surely during his life span use a greater quantity of fiber cutting tools for daily life than weapons. Read what others say about us at our TripAdvisor page. Tours Cruise ship tours Hotel packages. Ahu Tongariki. Rano Raraku , awaiting transportation.

Video from Thor Heyerdahl's visit of Rapa Nui native demonstrating how statues walked. Aliens placing a moai statue at Rapa Nui. This is what my grandfather Tori 'a Papaveri said to me:. To make the moai hat reach its place, a pile of rocks was built.

Feeling that there is a gap between scientists and the general audience, he started ZME Science -- and the results are what you see today. Home Science Archaeology. Why the Easter Island statues were built where they were Easter Island is one of the most mysterious places on Earth. January 29, Reading Time: 4 mins read. Image in public domain. Get more science news like this Tags: easter island moai rapa nui.

Share Tweet Share. Mihai Andrei Andrei's background is in geophysics, and he's been fascinated by it ever since he was a child.