Did the Moai Statues in Easter Island ‘Walk’ to Their Current Spot? Scientists Debunk the Myth
“The physics makes sense,” Doctor Carl Lipo, an archaeologist from Binghamton University, remarked after closing the mysterious case of Rapa Nui’s majestic stone statues dubbed “moai.” For decades, scientists have been left puzzled by these grand statues that stand perched on flat bases, overlooking the surrounding villages and rivers. According to the myths swirling around, the statues “walked” their way to reach the spot where they stand at present. Lipo then utilized physics to counteract it with concrete science. In a paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, he explored this “walking hypothesis.”
The myth about the walking statues was, obviously, concocted by locals. Lipo and his team picked up this myth and reframed it using the concepts of physics. Investigating the statues with the lens of physics revealed to them that they were neither dragged nor rolled to their current spot. Rather, they were “walked” here, and that too with the help of a small number of people. The objective of this study wasn’t just to deconstruct this myth about the walking statues, but also to understand how ancient dwellers moved these gigantic structures without the aid of advanced machinery or tools. If they just rolled the statues to this location, they must have chopped down dozens of trees to extract wooden logs to be used as rollers.
To solve the mystery, they created 3D models of the moai statues, with distinctive design features – wide D-shaped bases and a forward lean that would make them more likely to be moved in a rocking, zig-zagging motion. They carved out a 4.35-ton replica and experimented with moving it from one designated spot to the other. They concluded that the statues could be successfully relocated by 100 meters, and that too with just 18 people. Pronounced “mo-eye,” moai statues stand in the secluded Easter Islands. Thousands of them are scattered across the grassy valleys and riverside cliffs. One statue, according to the BBC, is as tall and heavy as a “double-decker bus.” They can weigh anywhere from 12 to 14 tons, going all the way up to 86 tons.
Previous scientific investigations revealed that the statues were transported to this location via a road network carved naturally as the locals hauled them to the mount here. The rich, porous volcanic soil ingrained in the statues told them they were likely made from the volcanic tuff, a material sourced from the adjoining quarry, which was once a volcano. The latest research suggested that the statues were walked to their places using ropes, clever planning, and teamwork by the island people of Rapa Nui.
“Once you get it moving, it isn’t hard at all – people are pulling with one arm. It conserves energy, and it moves really quickly,” Lipo explained in the press release. “The hard part is getting it rocking in the first place. The question is, if it’s really large, what would it take? Are the things that we saw experimentally consistent with what we would expect from a physics perspective?” These findings indicated that these Rapa Nui residents were probably incredibly smart as well as brilliant engineers who understood important mechanisms of physics in action.
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