Moving the Moai

Although I have travelled to Chile several times, I have not been able to visit

Moai of Easter Island

Easter Island and see the mysterious Moai. The Moai are striking monolithic human figures carved out of volcanic rock, weighing from 12 to 85 tons each.

Relative scale of human and Moai including portion underground

Over the centuries these figures have been inundated with ash and soil and gotten partly covered so in some cases, only the head is seen above ground.

What has always fascinated me has been how these massive objects were carved out of quarries and then shifted many kilometres away to where they are currently seen, especially with the technology available 500 years ago.

I was reminded of the Moai when we needed to deal with moving the boulders at our site. While some smaller rocks could be moved with a couple of labourers with crowbars, the larger boulders challenged us significantly requiring several persons, a couple of cranes and an earth mover !

So how did the Easter Islanders work on and move these massive boulders ? Local legend says that the Moai 'walked' from the quarry to their current locations.

Moving the Moai

The sculptures have been cleverly designed with a rounded base and naturally lean forward - this design apparently enables them to be 'walked' by two teams of workers using ropes to rock them from side to side while a third group uses another rope to keep it from falling down as the rocking motion moves it forward.

This hypothesis was validated by a group of archaeologists using a replica of a Moai.

Fascinating as this is, I am pleased that we have cranes and earth moving equipment to move the boulders on my site.

...Timeworn timber

...What they DONT teach you