Experimental archaeology
Inspired by Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki , Pavel Pavel set out to demonstrate how the monolithic Moai of Easter Island might have been moved into place by a small number of people using only rudimentary technologies. He conducted a practice experiment in 1982 in south Bohemia using a concrete model (4.5 m, 12 tonnes). In 1986 he was invited by Heyerdahl to Easter Island to test his experiment in its actual setting, where he successfully replicated the experiment. Only 16 people with one leader were needed for relatively fast statue transportation. [3]
He then performed some further experiments. He and five assistants using only wooden sledges erected and moved a 30-ton rocking stone at the village of Kadov (in Strakonice District) to its original location, from where it had been removed in the 19th century by unknown vandals. [4] He estimated that only 160 people with similar simple technology would have been necessary for transportation of the 800 ton stones in Baalbek.
One of next experiments, realised 1991, was building of one segment of Stonehenge model 1:1. Ten people transported during one day a five-ton concrete stone to the top of other two stones, using only ropes and wooden sledges. This model is erected in Strakonice. [5]
Easter Island is an island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania. The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.
The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca god Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also the name of Heyerdahl's book, the Academy Award-winning 1950 documentary film chronicling his adventures, and the 2012 dramatized feature film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
Moai or moʻai are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all moai have overly large heads three-eighths the size of the whole statue. The moai are chiefly the living faces of deified ancestors. The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands when Europeans first visited the island in 1722, but all of them had fallen by the latter part of the 19th century. The moai were toppled in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, possibly as a result of European contact or internecine tribal wars.
The Rapa Nui are the Polynesian peoples indigenous to Easter Island. The easternmost Polynesian culture, the descendants of the original people of Easter Island make up about 60% of the current Easter Island population and have a significant portion of their population residing in mainland Chile. They speak both the traditional Rapa Nui language and the primary language of Chile, Spanish. At the 2017 census there were 7,750 island inhabitants—almost all living in the village of Hanga Roa on the sheltered west coast.
Aku-Aku: the Secret of Easter Island is a 1957 book by Thor Heyerdahl published in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, and Finnish, and in English the following year. The book describes the 1955–1956 Norwegian Archaeological Expedition's investigations of Polynesian history and culture at Easter Island, the Austral Islands of Rapa Iti and Raivavae, and the Marquesas Islands of Nuku Hiva and Hiva Oa. Visits to Pitcairn Island, Mangareva and Tahiti are described as well.
Rapa Nui National Park is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site located on Easter Island, Chile. Rapa Nui is the Polynesian name of Easter Island; its Spanish name is Isla de Pascua. The island is located in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeastern extremity of the Polynesian Triangle. The island was taken over by Chile in 1888. Its fame and World Heritage status arise from the 887 extant stone statues known by the name "moai", whose creation is attributed to the early Rapa Nui people who inhabited the island around 300 AD. Much of the island has been declared as Rapa Nui National Park which, on 22 March 1996, UNESCO designated a World Heritage Site under cultural criteria (i), (iii), & (v). The Rapa Nui National Park is now under the administrative control of the Ma´u Henua Polynesian Indigenous Community, which is the first autonomous institute on the island. The indigenous Rapa Nui people have regained authority over their ancestral lands and are in charge of the management, preservation and protection of their patrimony. On the first of December 2017, the ex-President Michelle Bachelet returned ancestral lands in the form of the Rapa Nui National Park to the indigenous people. For the first time in history, the revenue generated by the National Park is invested in the island and used to conserve the natural heritage.
Rapa Nui mythology, also known as Pascuense mythology or Easter Island mythology, refers to the native myths, legends, and beliefs of the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island in the south eastern Pacific Ocean.
Hoa Hakananai'a is a moai, a statue from Easter Island. It was taken from Orongo, Easter Island in 1868 by the crew of a British ship and is now in the British Museum in London.
Totora is a subspecies of the giant bulrush sedge. It is found in South America, notably on Lake Titicaca, the middle coast of Peru and on Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean. The genus Schoenoplectus is closely related to Scirpus and sometimes included therein. This plant can reach a height of 6 m (20 ft) and commonly reaches 4 m (13 ft). The word totora comes from the Quechua language.
Anakena is a white coral sand beach in Rapa Nui National Park on Rapa Nui, a Chilean island in the Pacific Ocean. Anakena has two ahus; Ahu-Ature has a single moai and Ahu Nao-Nao has seven, two of which have deteriorated. It also has a palm grove and a car park.
Ahu Tongariki is the largest ahu on Easter Island. Its moais were toppled during the island's civil wars, and in the twentieth century the ahu was swept inland by a tsunami. It has since been restored and has fifteen moai, including one that weighs eighty-six tonnes, the heaviest ever erected on the island. Ahu Tongariki is one kilometer from Rano Raraku and Poike in the Hotu-iti area of Rapa Nui National Park. All the moai here face sunset during the winter solstice.
Ahu Akivi is a particular sacred place on the Chilean island of Rapa Nui, looking out towards the Pacific Ocean. The site has seven moai, all of equal shape and size, and is also known as a celestial observatory that was set up around the 16th century. The site is located inland, rather than along the coast. Moai statues were considered by the early people of Rapa Nui as their ancestors or Tupuna that were believed to be the reincarnation of important kings or leaders of their clans. The Moais were erected to protect and bring prosperity to their clan and village.
Maunga Puna Pau is a small crater or cinder cone and prehistoric quarry on the outskirts of Hanga Roa in the south west of Easter Island. Puna Pau gives its name to one of the seven regions of the Rapa Nui National Park.
Since the removal from Easter Island in 1868 of the moai now displayed at the British Museum, a total of 12 moai are known to have been removed from Easter Island and to remain overseas. Some of the moai have been further transferred between museums and private collections, for reasons such as the moais' preservation, academic research and for public education. In 2006, one relocated moai was repatriated from the Centro Cultural Recoleta, in Argentina, back to Easter Island, after 80 years overseas.
Geologically one of the youngest inhabited territories on Earth, Easter Island, located in the mid-Pacific Ocean, was, for most of its history, one of the most isolated. Its inhabitants, the Rapa Nui, have endured famines, epidemics of disease and cannibalism, civil war, environmental collapse, slave raids, various colonial contacts, and have seen their population crash on more than one occasion. The ensuing cultural legacy has brought the island notoriety out of proportion to the number of its inhabitants.
William Thomas Mulloy Jr. was an American anthropologist. While his early research established him as a formidable scholar and skillful fieldwork supervisor in the province of North American Plains archaeology, he is best known for his studies of Polynesian prehistory, especially his investigations into the production, transportation and erection of the monumental statuary on Rapa Nui known as moai.
The Father Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum is a museum in the town of Hanga Roa on Rapa Nui in Chilean Polynesia. Named for the Bavarian missionary, Fr. Sebastian Englert, OFM Cap., the museum was founded in 1973 and is dedicated to the conservation of the Rapa Nui cultural patrimony.
Gonzalo Figueroa Garcia Huidobro, often referred to simply as Gonzalo Figueroa, was an archaeologist and authority on the conservation of the archaeological heritage of Rapa Nui. Figueroa's work included participating in Thor Heyerdahl's Rapa Nui expedition, restoring Ahu Akivimoai with William Mulloy, and working generally for over four decades to conserve and, in some cases, restore the archaeological monuments of Rapa Nui for future generations.
Sonia Haoa Cardinali is a Rapanui archaeologist with the Mata Ki Te Rangi Foundation and coordinator of the island's national monuments. She has made important contributions to understanding the subsistence and survival of the prehistoric inhabitants. Her findings challenge the view that the islanders caused the environmental and social collapse of the island.
