• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

The Easter Island heads have bodies

Status
Not open for further replies.
GiYCP.jpg

Sort of accurate.
 
DurielBlack said:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/arqueologia/eastern_island/easter02.htm


Sooo...my childhood was a lie. Never knew about this until now, but apparently this is information that's been known for ages.
Click to expand...
What people don't realize are that there are a lot of those statues around the island, many in various incomplete states as well that show they're obviously more than just a head. Several of the statues around the island don't have the body section buried either.

Apparently, it likely has been known as far back as 1770 according to that article:

The Spanish visitors of 1770 struck a statue with a hoe, and sparks flew. At some time, an attempt was made to decapitate a statue, but it ended in failure and the damage extends no further than a handÂ’s breadth into the giant neck.
Click to expand...
 
XiaNaphryz said:
It's been mentioned in several books since the 90s at the very least. "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" comes to mind as I read through it recently.
Click to expand...

I'll have to read more about them and their history. I've studied a lot into European and East Asian history, but not much about other places. I'm feeling the lack!
 
Lissar said:
I'll have to read more about them and their history. I've studied a lot into European and East Asian history, but not much about other places. I'm feeling the lack!
Click to expand...
Collapse is quite the cautionary tale. It tells how the Easter Island dedication to the creation of the religious Moai statues eventually destroyed all their resources. It has meaning for our current society's resource-draining ideologies....
 
The story about how those statues ravaged the ecology of the islands that they were built on is far more fascinating than the actual statues themselves.

Although this does provide more insight into how fucking dumb those people were.
 
Zaptruder said:
The story about how those statues ravaged the ecology of the islands that they were built on is far more fascinating than the actual statues themselves.

Although this does provide more insight into how fucking dumb those people were.
Click to expand...
This is how they will talk about our fossil fuel burning and waste-producing consumerism in the future ;P
 
BocoDragon said:
Collapse is quite the cautionary tale. It tells how the Easter Island dedication to the creation of the religious Moai statues eventually destroyed all their resources. It has meaning for our current society's resource draining ideologies....
Click to expand...
What scares me about this is that I have friends who think "god will sustain the Earth until the end times." That shit is absolutely bonkers.
 
Orayn said:
What scares me about this is that I have friends who think "god will sustain the Earth until the end times." That shit is absolutely bonkers.
Click to expand...
Yes it is.
 
When you discover a major artifact out in the open, the first instinct is to preserve as much of the area as possible in case you accidentally cause it to break
 
Orayn said:
What scares me about this is that I have friends who think "god will sustain the Earth until the end times." That shit is absolutely bonkers.
Click to expand...

See, what I find bonkers are people who believe that "Oh no, we're doomed if we don't go green, live sustainable, blah blah blah" and then waste a lot of time and energy on things like internet discussions and video games.

What I also find bonkers are people who won't let humanity access the great energy reserves that exist on Earth - fracking, oil sands, coal, and of course nuclear power. Or at least North America, they don't seem to care when we import that energy from other countries that do...
 
DiscoJer said:
What I also find bonkers are people who won't let humanity access the great energy reserves that exist on Earth - fracking, oil sands, coal, and of course nuclear power. Or at least North America, they don't seem to care when we import that energy from other countries that do...
Click to expand...
People don't want to strip their own reserves unless they're forced to is all.
 
What if there's a giant Mecha under the cube in Mecca?
 
DiscoJer said:
See, what I find bonkers are people who believe that "Oh no, we're doomed if we don't go green, live sustainable, blah blah blah" and then waste a lot of time and energy on things like internet discussions and video games.
Click to expand...
How is that bonkers? If I want to purchase eco-friendly goods and services that I think will help the planet, I can't play fucking video games anymore? I just forfeited my right to surf the Internet?

And I'd love to know more about how this tribe disappeared, is there a good doco?
 
The downfall of the ancient Rapa Nui is fascinating. Was it the destruction of their environment at their own hands that caused their ultimate fate or was it rats that were the catalyst.
 
DiscoJer said:
See, what I find bonkers are people who believe that "Oh no, we're doomed if we don't go green, live sustainable, blah blah blah" and then waste a lot of time and energy on things like internet discussions and video games.

What I also find bonkers are people who won't let humanity access the great energy reserves that exist on Earth - fracking, oil sands, coal, and of course nuclear power. Or at least North America, they don't seem to care when we import that energy from other countries that do...
Click to expand...
This is like saying "smokers who admit that smoking is bad for health, are dumb"

Even if one is a total hypocrite (and btw, posting on the interent and playing games does not necessarily make you a sustainable living hypocrite in the slightest), there's nothing wrong with telling the truth.

If everyone on the planet lived like a person in a developed nation, then we'd need 5x earth's worth of landspace to sustain that lifestyle.

Everyone should know that, and everyone should pass on that fact, even if they are total hypocrites. It's a start.
 
DiscoJer said:
See, what I find bonkers are people who believe that "Oh no, we're doomed if we don't go green, live sustainable, blah blah blah" and then waste a lot of time and energy on things like internet discussions and video games.

What I also find bonkers are people who won't let humanity access the great energy reserves that exist on Earth - fracking, oil sands, coal, and of course nuclear power. Or at least North America, they don't seem to care when we import that energy from other countries that do...
Click to expand...
Yeah, ANWR alone would supply us with 2% more domestically generated fuel. Getting at this shit is truly vital.

Fracking needs heavy federal regulation. Drinking water that bursts into flame etc really isn't in anyone's best interest.
 
Yeah they put the half-finshed Moai in pits so they could refine the facial features and remove the "keel" they were carved from. The pits just got filled in over time. I went there in 2000, and it's one of the most amazing places I've ever been. They feel much bigger than they look in photos.
 
Zaptruder said:
The story about how those statues ravaged the ecology of the islands that they were built on is far more fascinating than the actual statues themselves.

Although this does provide more insight into how fucking dumb those people were.
Click to expand...
Those people were fundamentally the same as us.
 
Ecotic said:
Wait, wait, I'm actually pretty knowledgeable about Easter Island. When Europeans found the island some of the statues had been knocked over by intra-island warfare, so only a few must have been huge enough to be capable of being partially buried.
Click to expand...

Well there are hundreds of them. They're scattered around the coast on platforms, there are some that were abandoned along roads to the coast, and there are those that are unfinished at the volcano quarry.

But yeah, the ones still standing on the platforms have been re-erected and restored over the years. The biggest platform (the photo above) was originally toppled over then further destroyed by a tsunami.
 
Fusebox said:
With a fundamentally different belief system
Click to expand...
Yep. Not stupid, just didn't have the knowledge required to understand ecosystems. Ignorant. Still clever as hell to make the damn things in the first place.
 
midonnay said:
holy shit, the head is like the tip of an iceberg..... how the hell did they get it in the ground?
Click to expand...

Dug a big pit, then probably slid the Moai down the side of the volcano and into the pit. How they got them out and to the coast... well that's the big mystery.
 
Why has it been so long? Why didn't we know about this earlier? Seems odd that this is just being discovered.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

EASTER MUSIC
16
548
Dacvak replied
  • Locked
New Epstein Emails: Elon Musk Repeatedly Asked To Visit Epstein Island
39 40 41 42 43
2K
8K
Baemono replied
Report: Amazon worker drops dead in warehouse. Employees instructed to keep working and ignore the body.
2
52
610
EverydayBeast replied
Denis Villeneuve's James Bond auditions have officially started
2 3
143
405
Ishma3L replied
Are Plato and Aristotle the most influential humans that have ever lived?
2
83
1K
Baemono replied
Top Bottom