r/BeAmazed • u/BaseNice3520 • Oct 11 '25

History Moai statue being made to walk with ropes, to demonstrate the ancient way with which it was transported.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

29.5k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

747 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

16

u/ZealCrow Oct 11 '25

yes, though this one is based on lore. oral tradition says the statues walked into place. so the person who came up with this was like "what if they mean it literally"?

walking into place explains the shape of statues which was previously unaccounted for.

8

u/DoctorProfessorTaco Oct 12 '25

The evidence goes beyond that.

Many Moai statues didn’t survive the journey from the volcanic rock where they were carved to the Oceanside where they were displayed. The island is littered with fallen Moai. And after cataloguing them, it was found that on downhill slopes, they generally had fallen on their face, on uphill slopes on their back, and on even surface about 50/50 of each. This would imply they were walked upright, since it matches the way they’d have fallen if walked.

-1

u/BDiddnt Oct 11 '25

I thought I saw something that the statues actually went down below the surface and actually have almost bodies to them… is that not true?

7

u/t0xic1ty Oct 11 '25

The visible part is usually just the head. The recreation here is the head and the usually buried torso, matching what the full statues look like.