Age-old question: As to how the mysterious Easter Island heads were moved?

Rock 'n' Roll: Does this cunning technique help explain how the mysterious Easter Island heads 'walked' to their resting places?
By EDDIE WRENN
DAILY MAIL
June 20, 2012

Easter Island - the land where giant stone heads gaze distantly at the sea - is both a fascinating conundrum and a wonderful microcosm of a society which moved to a new land, accidentally destroyed the ecosystem, and then eventually destroyed themselves.

Legend and tells us that the ancient monuments, which range in height from four to 33 feet, were dragged into place from a distant quarry by Polynesian settlers, who sailed a thousand miles across the Pacific in canoes around AD800, before almost instantly embarking on their campaign of building the mysterious monuments.

But one thing has always led to debate: how exactly did the tribe move the 'moai' - some of which weigh more than 80 tons - to their final destinations without the benefit of modern technology.


Just taking my head for a walk: Three teams, one on each side and one in the back, manage to maneuver an Easter Island statue replica down a road in Hawaii


The 10-foot, 5-ton replica of an Easter Island 'moai' dances down the road, guided by teams on each side and behind it

The descendents of the Polynesians are adamant the stones walked to their resting places. But a new study, presented by National Geographic, suggests the Polynesians had some help from a little rock 'n' roll...

Researchers have tended to assume the ancestors dragged the statues somehow, using a lot of ropes and wood.

But islanders maintain something very different: One, Suri Tuki, says: 'The experts can say whatever they want. But we know the truth. The statues walked.'
Perhaps the islander's viewpoint is right - as it arguably matches with the 'vertical walking' method.

The clue is in each statue's fat belly - which produces a forward-falling center of gravity that helps with vertical transport.

And, with just a few ropes, a team of 18 people could rock the statue back and forth, each time inching the statue on just a little bit more.

[...]


The originals: The ancient carved heads on the island of the South Pacific - which give rise to so many theories on their construction

[...]

(click here to read the full article)

• These images, and elements of the article, are from the July edition of National Geographic magazine

Read more:
Easter Island - Pictures, More From National Geographic Magazine



Published on Jun 21, 2012 by NationalGeographic
http://youtu.be/YpNuh-J5IgE


Researchers Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo test a new theory that suggests how ancient Easter Islanders may have used ropes to "walk" the moai to their platforms.

A new interesting and mysterious shipwreck discovered in the Baltic Sea

Shipwreck in Baltic Sea? A UFO? Mystery to Treasure Hunters
By NED POTTER (@NedPotterABC)
ABC News
Jan. 31, 2012


Sonar image of an unidentified object on the floor of the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. (Credit: Peter Lindberg/OceanExplorer.se)

They know they're onto something big. If only they knew what that something was.

A group of treasure hunters based in Stockholm, using sonar, has found a strange disc-shaped object on the floor of the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Finland. From above, it looks a bit like the Millennium Falcon of "Star Wars" fame. It's large -- 197 feet in diameter -- and it's in about 275 feet of water. Leading to (or from) it is a churned-up track on the sea floor of about 1,600 feet.

"We need to know what we've found," said Peter Lindberg of Ocean Explorer, the group that made the sonar sweep while looking for more conventional shipwrecks. "Media has been speculating about everything from UFOs to Russian spaceships."

What are the most realistic possibilities? "Let us put it like this: we have tried a lot of theories," Lindberg wrote in an email to ABC News. "The list is getting shorter and shorter with options, so for now we do not really know. We do not have anything that speaks more for one option or the other."

The treasure hunters would like to explore the wreck -- if it is a wreck -- with a small submarine, but they don't have the money to bring one in. If it were one of the conventional ships they've looked for in the past, they would hope to find gold or silver, but in this case they don't know what's actually there.

So they are talking to TV production companies, hoping one will fund them and make a documentary about their work. In the meantime, they are keeping the precise location of their find a secret, and waiting for spring and warmer weather.

"We are determined to successfully complete our mission of finding out what's at the bottom of the Baltic Sea," said Lindberg.

Mysteries of archaeology, still unsolved...

Where is the grave of Genghis Khan?Japan-Mongol Joint Research Team via AP
Where is Genghis Khan buried? Nobody knows. The bloody Mongol warrior became famous as the ruler of an empire that eventually stretched from China to Hungary, but he asked to be buried in an unmarked grave. According to legend, anyone who witnessed the burial party en route to the funeral in 1227 was killed, and then the soldiers and servants who attended the funeral were massacred. Thus, the grave site has been one of archaeology's enduring mysteries. But scientists may be closing in on the location at last. In 2004, they unearthed the site of Genghis Khan's 13th-century palace, which is pictured here. Ancient texts suggest the grave itself could be nearby.

What happened on Easter Island?Carlos Barria / Reuters file
Hundreds of monolithic statues called Moai, including the ones in this picture, ring remote Easter Island in the South Pacific. They face inland from the shore, presumably keeping watch over ancestral lands. Scientists unraveling the mystery of how the Polynesian settlers moved the statues are also piecing together the tale of the settlers' demise. According to a leading theory, giant palms were hacked down to roll the statues into place beginning in about 1200. As the population swelled, more chiefs requested statues, and more trees were felled. Eventually the island was denuded. Easter Island's environment — and society — collapsed. Other researchers pin the blame on Europeans, disease and rats.

Was Stonehenge a place of healing?Scott Barbour / Getty Images file
Every year at the summer solstice, thousands of people witness the season's first sunrise at Stonehenge, about 90 miles west of London in the English countryside. Was the monument erected beginning around 3000 B.C. for the secular purpose of marking time? Perhaps, some scholars say. Another prominent theory suggests it was a place of worship. The most recent idea holds that the monument was erected as center of healing. Archaeologists dug at the site for the first time in nearly half a century to get a precise date for Stonehenge's bluestones, which were thought to have healing powers. A close match with the time frame during which archaeologists believe the stones were taken from the Perseli Mountains, 153 miles away, could help confirm the theory.

Why were the Nazca Lines etched?David Jackson / NBC News file
Hundreds of lines and figures etched into the coastal desert of southern Peru have baffled archaeologists for decades. The Nazca people made the playing-field sized etchings between 200 B.C. and A.D. 700 by removing rust-colored pebbles to reveal the lighter soils beneath. Some are simple shapes reminiscent of geometry class. Others are recognizable animals, such as the hummingbird in this image. But what do they mean? Theories proposed over the years have ranged from religious and astronomical purposes to guideposts of sorts for finding water.

What is China's terracotta army guarding?SACH
In 1974, archaeologists found an army of thousands of terracotta statues standing guard outside the tomb of Qin Shi Huang Di, the ruler who unified China in 221 B.C. The find ranks as one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. Each of the soldiers has a unique facial expression, and the troops are aligned according to rank in trenchlike corridors, accompanied by horses and chariots.
As impressive as the army may be, scientists suspect that even greater treasure lies within Qin's unexcavated tomb. An account by an ancient court historian suggests that the tomb is full of miniature palaces, rivers of mercury and precious stones to represent the moon and stars. Remote sensing and nearby excavations have lent some credence to the writings.

How were the Egyptian pyramids built?

Muhammed Muheisen / AP file
The Great Pyramid of Giza near Cairo, one of the ancient Seven Wonders of the World, retains its world-famous status in a 21st-century list of seven wonders. Its mystique partly rests in just how the 479-foot-tall burial structure was built. Most Egyptologists believe large stones were moved from a quarry and lifted into place, but how? Teams of workers could have dragged the 2.5-ton stones with brute force, or perhaps they rolled them on logs. However they did it, recent research suggests the workers were skilled, not untrained slaves.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24764171#.TtVCgbKBq0s