Overview:
New research is shedding fresh light on one of the world’s greatest archaeological mysteries: how Easter Island’s iconic Moai statues were made, moved and what they truly meant to the Rapa Nui people. Using landmark 3D mapping, researchers have revealed how clans competed, how massive statues may have “walked” across the island, and why one unfinished giant, Te Tokanga, still holds unanswered questions.
Friday 2 January
(ABC-Australia) The extent of Te Tokanga’s monolithic dimensions and the social organisation of the people who created it have been revealed for the first time, researchers say.
Landmark three-dimensional mapping of an Easter Island quarry has also shed more light on how researchers believe hundreds of other similar statues came to be.
This is what the map reveals.
Clans ‘competed’ over Moai creation
Researchers said the natural lay of the mountain limited the amount of physical space available to the Rapa Nui people to excavate Moai at some of the 30 workshops.
That meant Moai were probably carved out of bedrock by teams of between four and six people, while up to 20 others may have helped with additional tasks such as tool and rope production, the study said.
Dr Lipo said the small production teams were evidence the Rapa Nui consisted of decentralised clans, rather than as a single society.
That likely led to clans competing for superiority by creating the biggest, most impressive Moai possible, Dr Lipo said.
“It really does appear like this island surprisingly has lots of different groups working side by side,” he told the ABC.
“[The Moai] represent ancestors, so [the Rapa Nui are] carving these ancestral figures, they’re bringing them from the quarry back to their communities … They’re varying how they’re doing it to show off, but they’re sticking within that grammar of competition.”
Jorge Otero, a specialist in archaeological conservation from the University of Barcelona, has worked on the island assessing damages sustained to Moai in the 2022 fires.
He said he agreed with the report’s assessment of the value of the Moai to the local people.
“We went inside [a] crater to make an analysis on Moai and before going inside, the community asked us to stop because they needed to pray and ask ancestors for permission,” he told the ABC.
“There is a strong connection with the spiritual path. I believe it’s magic.
“[Rapa Nui] is something that you see in many pictures. It’s like the Taj Mahal — one of the most iconic places in the world.”
How were the Moai transported?
Dr Lipo has worked for more than 20 years to piece together the archaeology, history, ethnography and social organisation of the Rapa Nui people.
Some of that work involved investigating how the populace of Easter Island was physically able to transport gigantic stone heads around the 163-square-kilometre island.
Theories — including the use of wooden logs to roll and stand Moai vertically — have been suggested for decades. But in 2013, Dr Lipo and his colleagues came to another conclusion.
The Moai could “walk”.
Dr Lipo’s theory was that the Rapa Nui most likely used ropes to rock Moai back and forth and move them forward in a stepping motion.
He said physics and the tests his team conducted proved it could work.
“We started from the archaeological record, saying, ‘Well, what are the features of the statues themselves?’” he said.
Their research found some of the Moai were created with convex, D-shaped bases and a slight lean forward, which meant they were unable to stand freely without support.
Dr Lipo said the Moai were “walked” into position, then their bases carved flat so they could stand upright on the ahu.
“The ones that got to the places that they were going could stand straight up, so they obviously changed them and re-carved them,” Dr Lipo said.
“The physics makes sense. What we saw experimentally actually works and, as it gets bigger, it still works.
“All the attributes that we see about moving gigantic ones only get more and more consistent the bigger and bigger they get, because it becomes the only way you could move it.”
Mr Otero said the theory supports what some Rapa Nui told him during his time working on the island.
“According to Rapa Nui philosophy and moral tradition, each Moai during the night walked and placed themselves on ahu, watching over the community,” he said.
Professor Lipo’s research also showed the Rapa Nui people created makeshift roads to transport the Moai.
Many fallen statues were found along roads extending from Rano Raraku, suggesting the efforts failed many times over long distances, Dr Lipo said.
“It shows that the Rapa Nui people were incredibly smart. They figured this out,”
he said.
If it were finished, Te Tokanga would have been Rapa Nui’s largest standing Moai.
The fact that it remains embedded in Rano Raraku speaks to some of the mystery surrounding the statue, Dr Lipo said.
“The name Te Tokanga means ‘residue of a thing’ or ‘what remains’, which suggests this name might not be about a person but what it represents,” he said.
“Te Tokanga is an interesting case, as it would have been, if finished, incredibly tall and heavy.
“One of the puzzling things about Te Tokanga is that it does not appear to have been shaped in such a way that it could have been moved — the proportions are wrong, so it would have likely toppled over.
“This might mean the carvers erred in their work or that the Moai was never meant to be moved from the quarry.”
Dr Lipo said Te Tokanga’s size and the longevity of the Rapa Nui people in creating other Moai over hundreds of years show how significant the statues were to the island.
“This had to have made sense to these people,” he said.
“If people are going to do this over 500 years, from first arrival to when Europeans get there, and then even a little beyond, it had to be something that really mattered to them.
“We’re finally putting the puzzle together to really understand that these statue constructions — while they’re mysterious and improbable and wild from a Western perspective — made total sense.”