What you may not have known is that those Easter Island heads actually have hidden buried bodies. Archaeologists have uncovered the bodies associated with the heads and found interesting discoveries that further our knowledge of the Easter Island civilization and how they created the monoliths.
What do the Moai represent?
What do the Moai represent? It’s thought that the Moai were symbols of religious and political power and leadership. Carvings and sculptures in the Polynesian world often have strong spiritual meanings, and followers often believe a carving had magical or spiritual powers of the person or deity depicted.
How deep are the Easter Island heads?
The Moai were lowered to the ground by ropes in order for the carving to be completed. Thus we find, on the very peak of the volcano rim, round holes carved into the rock, five feet deep and over two feet in diameter.
Where are the big stone heads?
Rapa Nui Easter Island
Rapa Nui. Easter Island (Rapa Nui in Polynesian) is a Chilean island in the southern Pacific Ocean famous for it’s stone head statues called Moai. When you first see a Moai statue you are drawn to its disproportionately large head (compared to body length) and that is why they are commonly called “Easter Island Heads”.
Why are the moai statues there?
Moai statues were built to honor chieftain or other important people who had passed away. They were placed on rectangular stone platforms called ahu, which are tombs for the people that the statues represented.
What is the Easter Island mystery?
Deforestation, slavery and rats were all factors in the Pacific island’s population decline. Most people have heard of the decimation of the population of Easter Island (also called Rapa Nui) and have seen pictures of the massive stone statues (moai) that line the coastline.
Where did the bones of people buried at Stonehenge come from?
The bones of people buried at Stonehenge, who died and were cremated about 5,000 years ago, have given up their secrets: like the bluestones, which form part of the famous prehistoric monument, they came from west Wales, near the Preseli Hills where the stones were quarried.
What does Stonehenge really mean?
Archaeologists have argued for centuries about what Stonehenge really meant to the people who gave hundreds of thousands of hours to constructing circles of bluestones shipped from Wales, and sarsens the size of double-decker buses dragged across Salisbury plain. Druids and New Age followers still claim the site as their sacred place.
Why was Stonehenge used as a cremation cemetery?
On the contrary, thanks to the high temperatures reached, the structure of the bone is modified, making the bone resistant to post-mortem exchanges with the burial soil.” It was known that Stonehenge was used as an early cremation cemetery, but not who was buried there.
How many Neolithic people lived at Stonehenge?
The beginnings of this study can be traced to the 1920s, when archaeologists first excavated pits at Stonehenge called Aubrey holes, named after 17th-century natural philosopher John Aubrey. The archaeologists identified 58 Neolithic individuals in 56 Aubrey holes.
