One in all the world’s best mysteries could have been solved after 900 years | News World

For 900 years, the mystery of how the famous Easter Island stone figures ended up where they’re has baffled experts.

Now, a team of researchers think they know the way the traditional Rapa Nui people managed to maneuver the monolithic heads across rough land.

Easter Island is home to just about 1,000 of the massive statues, referred to as moai. They were forged from compacted ash contained in the extinct volcano on the island.

A number of the statues measure 33 feet high and weigh some 86 tonnes, making their movement to varied parts of Easter Island inconceivable.

Researchers Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt imagine they know the way the statues were moved and who they were made by.

In a recent study published in The Journal of Archaeological Science, the pair said they imagine large ropes were used to shimmy the statues across the rocky terrain – and so they were made by individual tribes, somewhat than one chief.

And, unlike other studies, which think they were crafted by a robust tribe, it’s thought that individual clans and families carved their very own.

‘We see separate workshops that actually align to different clan groups which might be working intensively of their specific areas,’ Lipo said.

‘You’ll be able to really see graphically from the development that there’s a series of statues being made here, one other series of statues here and that they’re lined up next to one another.’

‘The presence of monuments became circular evidence for hierarchy. Monuments meant chiefs because chiefs built monuments.’

Minute differences within the faces of the moai point to this as well – some appear to have more feminine features, or larger noses.

And somewhat than being dragged to their locations by tribesmen, it’s believed locals used ropes to ‘rock’ and ‘walk’ the statues to their locations.

Lipo said: ‘When you get it moving, it isn’t hard in any respect—persons are pulling with one arm.

‘It conserves energy, and it moves really quickly. The hard part is getting it rocking in the primary place.’

Hunt and Lipo even tested the ‘walking’ theory on smaller models and located it was easier than other methods previously thought to have been used.

In just 40 minutes, a team of 18 people were in a position to move the large statues 100 metres – meaning this could possibly be the way in which ancient people moved the moai.

‘It shows that the Rapa Nui people were incredibly smart. They figured this out,’ Lipo said.

‘So it really gives honour to those people, saying, have a look at what they were in a position to achieve, and now we have lots to learn from them in these principles.’

Are there every other ways the statues might have been moved?

Researchers initially believed the statues were moved by people placing them on picket sleds and dragging them.

But this may have been arduous and brought a whole lot of manpower – the brand new method proposed by Lipo and Hunt found it took much less effort to ‘walk’ the statues into their positions.

What’s the meaning of the moai statues?

The true meaning behind the headstones is unknown, but essentially the most common theory is that they were carved by Polynesian residents on the island as representations of their dead ancestors in order that they could project their ‘mana’ over their descendants.

These statues are literally full-body figures that became partially buried over time.

When was Easter Island discovered?

Though the island had been inhabited by the Rapa Nui people, descendants of Polynesian explorers between 300 and 1200 BC, Easter Island was ‘discovered’ by the Dutch within the 1700s.

Captain Jacob Coggeveen stumbled upon the island, 1000’s of miles off of Chile, on Easter Sunday in 1722, giving the island its distinct name in honour of the vacation.

After an initial skirmish between the Dutch crew and the Rapa Nui, the natives gave their visitors sixty chickens and bunches of bananas, in exchange for linen.

Descendants of the Rapa Nui still survive the island, sharing a wealthy culture and speaking their very own language.

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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