We May Finally Know How Easter Island’s Giant Statues Got Their Jaunty Stone Hats
But there are still puzzles left to solve
By Kat Eschner
Almost a thousand stone figures — each weighing tons — dot Easter Island, known also as Rapa Nui. These moai have puzzled generations of Western anthropologists over the past two centuries: how were they created, and how were they moved from the places where stone was quarried to the points on the island where they’re found today?
How, for that matter, did they end up wearing six foot-wide hats made out of different kinds of stone from the statues themselves?
A new study from a team of American researchers, some who have been studying the moai for almost two decades, offers an answer to this last baffling question. The physicists and anthropologists used three-dimensional models of the hats, which are called pukao, and the existing anthropological record, which includes hats and statues found around the island in modern times. Based on their modeling and the existing evidence, they demonstrated that the hats were affixed before the statues were completed and situated, while they were tilted forward.
There are many theories about how and why the Easter Islanders built and transported their statues, says study author Carl…
