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Thread: What Scientists Discovered Underneath The Easter Island Heads! Unbelievable!

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    What Scientists Discovered Underneath The Easter Island Heads! Unbelievable!



    ig surprise: everyone knows that Easter Island’s giant statues have stunning heads, but did you know they have great bodies too? Pictures: Easter Island Statue Project. Source: Supplied



    The grand mystery of the heads of Easter Island has just deepened…literally!

    Archeologists have excavated around the heads and guess what they found? The heads have full bodies! The bodies are covered in ancient and as of yet indecipherable writings called petroglyphs.

    “The reason people think they are [only] heads is there are about 150 statues buried up to the shoulders on the slope of a volcano, and these are the most famous, most beautiful and most photographed of all the Easter Island statues,” Van Tilburg, who is also a fellow at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Life’s Little Mysteries. “This suggested to people who had not seen photos of [other unearthed statues on the island] that they are heads only.”

    Watch the video to see these awe-inspiring, ancient works of art uncovered for the first time in modern history!


    Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWj2keMob-c




    Excavation: 150 statues stand upright on the slopes of Easter Island’s quarry. They are buried to varying depths and often appear as heads only. Picture: Easter Island Statue Project. Source: Supplied



    Wow, bodies too: in 1955 adventurer Thor Heyerdahl led the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition excavating several statues. Picture: Easter Island Statue Project.Source: Supplied

    Excavations expose torsos of two 7m tall statues
    Easter Island is 3,550km west of South American coast
    Deforestation destroyed island’s ecological balance

    THE giant stone statues scattered around remote Easter Island are even more impressive than they first appear. Hidden from view, the heads are attached to bodies that extend metres underground.

    A dig at Rano Raraku, the quarry where Easter Island’s statues were hewn out of rock, is casting new light on a remarkable discovery forgotten for decades.

    In 1919 pictures of the first excavations by the Mana Expedition to Easter Island revealed that some statues were full sized.

    The discovery was confirmed in 1955 by the explorer Thor Heyerdahl when his Norwegian Archaeological Expedition excavated a statue.

    Over subsequent decades the discoveries were gradually forgotten, known by archaeologists but not by tourists, who began visiting the island when flights between Santiago and Tahiti, via Easter Island, began in the 1990s.



    Excavations: Rano Raraku quarry was first reported to the outside world in 1868 by officers of HMS Topaze. The world was fascinated, and many sketches, essays, newspaper articles, and books were published describing the statues embedded in the slopes as “heads.” Pictures: Easter Island Statue Project. Source: Supplied



    Today, a team of local archaeologists is working to unlock the secrets of their mysterious island.

    Led by UCLA archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project, they have excavated two seven metre tall, full-size statures, estimated to weigh about 20 tonnes.

    For anyone who has stood next to these huge, imposing heads, or marveled at how a primitive people moved them many kilometres from one side of the island to the other, it’s a remarkable discovery.



    Excavation: the dirt partially burying the statues was washed down from above and not deliberately placed there to bury, protect, or support them. Picture: Easter Island Statue Project. Source: Supplied



    Since 1990, the Easter Island Statue Project (EISP) has been undertaking an archaeological survey on Easter Island, aiming to create a full and complete, island-wide inventory for each statue.

    “It is vital to have a good record of the statues,” said the EISP’s director Jo Anne Van Tilburg.

    “What they look like, where they are found, and how they relate to the sites on which they are found. It is also essential to amass a catalog of the statues as artifacts in order to preserve them for future generations.”



    One of the most isolated islands on Earth, Easter Island sits 3,550km west of the South American coast. Picture: Google Maps. Source: Supplied

    Since it was named by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen on Easter Sunday 1722, the 887 monumental statues of Easter Island have inspired wonder and raised countless questions.

    How was the island populated? How were the statues made? How were they moved around the island? And what happened to a society that had resorted to cannibalism by the time Captain James Cook visited in 1774?

    In recent decades the anthropologist Jared Diamond and others have held up the eventual decline and fall of Easter Island as a warning of the environmental and societal dangers of over-exploitation.

    Some questions were tackled by the first archaeological expedition to Easter Island, led by Katherine Routledge in 1919.

    “Unfortunately, the excavations she conducted were very poorly documented, when they were documented at all,” said Van Tilburg.

    “Therefore, her work was highly flawed and needs to be clarified.”



    Quarry: Rano Raraku, where 95 percent of the stone statues were carved, is a massive mound of consolidated volcanic ash surrounding a reed-filled lake. Picture: Easter Island Statue Project. Source: Supplied



    One of the most isolated islands on Earth, Easter Island sits 3,550km west of the South American mainland.

    It was first settled by Polynesian people who arrived by canoe as part of a great wave of Pacific colonisation.



    UCLA’s Jo Anne Van Tilburg oversees excavations: an all-Rapa Nui field crew works on the excavations, with the assistance of a core goup of Rapa Nui elders. Picture: Easter Island Statue Project. Source: Supplied


    For decades archaeologists have speculated about how the sculptures were moved and made.

    How did the islanders move the sculptures? “The most certainly did not ‘walk’ them over challenging terrain for many miles, as has been claimed by some,” said Van Tilburg.

    “More probably statues of different sizes and shapes were moved in a variety of common-sense and practical ways, including especially in horizontal positions.”



    UCLA’s Jo Anne Van Tilburg and her team: an all-Rapa Nui field crew works on the excavations, with the assistance of a core goup of Rapa Nui elders. Picture: Easter Island Statue Project. Source: Supplied



    Eventually, the population of Easter Island swelled to around 7000 people, all competing to build statues.

    “I don’t think there is any question among today’s researchers that humans were responsible for deforestation on the island, and that deforestation caused significant challenges to the social fabric,” said Van Tilburg.

    “Nor is there any question that deforestation forced social adaptation, some of which took place in agriculture.

    “In fact, the use of the statues changed significantly but, and this is an important caveat, the purpose of the statues remained the same. I think the issue most people have is with the word “collapse.” They find it perforative or somehow blame-filled.”

    “I don’t think that is the case at all. There will always be apologists for human behavior we all know is very much a part of the way all of us, no matter what society we are part of, live in the world, historically and even today.”



    Excitement: overview of the dig site with a protective fence on last day of excavation

    And what lessons can modern humanity learn from Easter Island?

    “Society can learn to take the long view and pay attention to the big picture,” says Van Tilburg.

    “Rapa Nui society, as the data make clear, was highly conservative but also adaptive when faced with challenges.”

    Source: http://csglobe.com/what-scientists-d...-unbelievable/
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    I'll be the first here to point out the obvious.

    The full-bodied statues holding their groin area look eerily similar like the style of statue found at Gobekli Tepe:




    Gobekli Tepe dates back to somewhere around 10,000 BC.

    Obviously if these statues were not buried by their creators, it would probably take a very long time for them to become buried in that much sediment. Maybe also 12,000 years? Something to think about. Also the ancient script on Easter Island is nearly identical to the ancient script found at Mohenjo-daro, famous for its advanced city-planning, apparent lack of social classes, abrupt abandonment, and purportedly skeletons of the dead lying all through its streets with radiation levels above background. Both the Mohenjo-daro script and the Easter Island script use what is basically stick figures of people, even in the same positions.

    So it seems to me what we are dealing with is a very ancient colonizing civilization, which before the last great flood (around 10,000 BC) may have been equivalent to what we would call today Lemuria or Mu: a civilization spanning from the Mediterranean region on one end, through Asia and into the Pacific on the other.

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    Fascinating, TheOne. The Thor Heyerdahl publication was amazing, i still remember reading it.

    What strikes me from the photo's is the same-colour lower parts of these impressive statues. Quite often you see striations in colour or horizontal grooves indicating a gradual 'burial' or 'sinking' into the soil of the lower parts of half buried statues. It is possible that this could be the result of sudden changes like nearby volcanic eruptions that in one swoop cover most of the lower sections of the statues ? Just a thought.

    On Thera/Santorini after the giant vulcanic eruption around 1600 BCE a layer of ash and debris 60 meters( 197 feet) thick covered all the structures and buildings on the island. Excavations are still ongoing. I have no idea if there were any vulcanoes nearby Easter Island.

    Following the eruption on Thera/Santorini the layer of ash and debris

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    Rapa Nui is obviously older than scholars want to admit or allow into their very well defined paradigm borders. The fact is they are their own worst enemy about following facts where they lead so hopefully people will admit now they traveled by sea as it is obvious they had contact between large bodies of water spreading the same cultural anthropomorphic gods, all of which are holding their groins the same way! Seems cut and dry to me. They sailed 12,000 years ago and probably well before that as we know someone made all those old maps now didn't they! I think we've found our 'ancient sea kings' and they look like zombies or faceless mummies!

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    You are quite right, Jengelen. When i was still teaching, the cave paintings discovered in Chauvet cave in the mid nineteen nineties in France threw a monkey wrench in the official dating of prehistoric art.

    Originally all the works but one in Chauvet were (carbon)dated between 35,000 to 31,000 years ago.

    But just look at the correct anatomical rendering of many of the animals!

    Also there were clear narratives among these paintings where animals in groups were indicating 3D space by the use of techniques like overlap, foreshortening, difference in sizes being smaller when further away etc.etc. Some of these techniques were said to have been 'invented' by famous Renaissance painters in Italy quite a few thousands of years later!

    Remember that all the earlier discovered cave paintings in France were dated to around 20,000 years ago....quite a difference.

    Just recently i noticed that in some publications the dating of these Chauvet paintings were sliding down a bit, the range now being from 30,000 to 21,000 years ago.
    It would be so convenient to get a bit closer to all the previous datings of other prehistoric art.

    For me personally it is just another significant indication that time is indeed not linear and developments in art did not take place in a straight line from the primitive to the sophisticated but rather in cycles, many, many cycles.

    I found a three minute video of some of these stunning paintings in Chauvet.

    Last edited by Aragorn, 12th July 2015 at 22:40. Reason: fixed your video link ;)

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    Interesting.

    The following might be interesting to link a particular location with Rapa nui.
    http://www.celticnz.co.nz/ft.html Photo of an incised New Zealand stone.
    This is the Puniho stone found on a Taranaki Marae. According to a European farmer living nearby, the already incised stone was hauled out of the "Stoney River".
    The same farmer says that there are many more with these strange markings on them at the bottom of the river.
    Further to this is to take a read of the information gathered on the above website to do with Koru Pa, which is in the same area of these stones, this region of NZ is one in which the oldest pre maori civilaztions have been proven to have inhabited.
    http://www.celticnz.co.nz/KoruPA/Koru%20PA.htm

    Also, a few years ago while looking at a Rapa nui map I was intrigued to find that there a number of the names for villages etc used there, that were names also used for places in this same province in which the Puniho stone is and Koru Pa is. Koru Pa might be compared to a cashel.
    One example off hand of these name was Motunui. A location which is also a world grid intersect.
    Last edited by enjoy being, 20th August 2015 at 04:50. Reason: spelling

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