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The Great Stone Statue, walked or rolled.
The thesis about hypothesis that Moai, the Statues Of Easter Island, which also known as one of 'The Seven Wonders of the World', was carried by making it 'walk' was recently announced, and it became a controversy in International Academia of Archaeology. 3700 km west of Chile, the Easter Island has an area of 163 km² and it is desolated island, comprised of volcanic rocks. About 1000 Moai statues which is at most 10-meter height and 74-ton weight are all that dot the whole area of the Easter Island. However, how natives quarry stones, carved it exquisitely, and moved them without wagon and animal is still remain mysterious. Even the opinion that the one who made and moved the statue is alien had appeared.
● The hypothesis about 'Walking Moai' is published in October issue of international journal <Journal of Archaeological Science>. After 3 statues tied with ropes and tug from both sides can make statue walk with a waddle. Research team produced a 4.4 tons concrete statue and experimented in Kualoa Ranch, Hawaii to prove the hypothesis. The team of 18 people pulled the rope behind the statue not to fall down, and with the other 2 ropes they tied both sides of the statue and pulled it by turns at the word of command 'Hip-Ho'. Through this experiment, the team could move statues about 100-meter an hour.
▲ Research team came up with abandoned statues on the roadside of the island to support the 'Walking Moai' hypothesis. Centrically from quarry, statues were fallen backward on uphill and forward on downhill and this can be the clue. Also, the fact that 37 percent of abandoned statues were broken into more than 2 pieces can be the clue that statues were transported endways not laid down. In addition, the team made a three-dimensional model of Moai statue and analyzed the centroid on the computer. The centroid of the statue is tilted slightly forward from the center of Up·Down and Left·Right so tit is proper to move its centroid and make statue walk.
◆ However, counter view is formidable. By the year 2000, professor Jo Anne Van Tilburg from UCLA who lead The Easter Island Statue Project(EISP) and studied statue refused that the experiment of Carl Lib's research was "acrobatic movement, not an experiment'. The model statue used in 'Walking Moai' experiment was not the same as the real Moai so it cannot support the hypothesis. Most of the archaeologists believe the Jo Anne Van Tilburg's research theory that Moai statues were moved by loaded on logs by natives. This theory was introduced as an example that the great civilization of Easter Island was lead to self-destruction by natives cutting off the trees to built the statue in <Collapse of Civilization> written by Gerald Diamond. Onetime, the population of the island has explosively increased and disappeared with destruction of the environment. Though, according to Carl Lib's research has been the focus of saying that only with fewer natives can move Moai statue.
Intermediate writing class #2
Education201110601
Hyeon-jeong Yoon
Interesting, but I'm not sure that I really care :-) I guess that is a sincere academic interest, though. Somebody always cares about something.
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