BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About

Subject: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 08:36 AM

There's a new theory backed up with video showing how the massive sculptures of Easter Island were moved from their quarry to their display area: Click here for story!

They "walked!"

Seeing is believing.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 09:42 AM

In much the same way, but on a much smaller scale, I've "walked" gravestones weighed several hundred pound. We put them on an empty oil drum or other table to make the "walking" easier and to prevent damage to the polished stone from the concrete floor of the shop.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 10:47 AM

Now all we have to do is figure out how the pyramids were built. (I had a friend who thinks they - and the Sphinx - are all sand, and just scored to look like blocks...)

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 10:52 AM

Old news! Thor Heyerdahl wrote of walking Moai in his book on Easter Island Aku-Aku in 1959...

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 11:37 AM

It may be "old news" but Thor didn't provide a video link.

I like the theory that the pyramids are really just made of sand, like sand castles on a beach.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Amos
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 01:21 PM

Heyerdahl described in detail the process of erecting the giant statues using poles and pebbles--LOTS of pebbles. But I don't remember his describing the walk shown in the video.

I think it demonstrates how out of touch we can get with the management of natural forces when we are shielded by too many servomechanisms.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 03:32 PM

Amos-

The current National Geographic only has Heyerdahl moving a statue tied to the trunk of a tree.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: fretless
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 04:30 PM

My recollection is that Heyerdahl rolled the statues from the quarry on beds of logs, which is also how they were depicted being moved in the movie Rapa Nui. That seems to me to be easier and more efficient than the rocking walk depicted here. You need logs to move them by this rolling method, of course, but not too many--once you roll past a log it is carted around to the front and rolled over again (and again, and again...). Once they were in their final locations, Heyerdahl showed it was possible to lift them into place using the pole and pebble technique noted by Amos.
Having the pyramids built of sand would be a surprise to any of us who have actually climbed them. It sure felt like stone to me!
As for the construction technique, I'm in favor of aliens with really efficient sky hooks. Or they may have gone up with the technique described in the demotivator poster: it is amazing what you can accomplish with a little bit of imagination and an unlimited supply of slave labor.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 04:44 PM

fretless-

The only problem with the rolling logs theory was the shortage of logs historically on the island, as documented in the National Geographic article. Other than that, it's a great theory.;~)

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Rapparee
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 06:27 PM

Logs float and could have been brought in from elsewhere, towed in. But from my own experience moving those *&%$!! heavy gravestones (without power hoists -- strictly rollers, inclined planes, ropes, levers and things) of a couple of other ways the statues could have been moved.

The pyramids ARE sand, but it's held together with epoxy glue. This has been scientifically confirmed and easily found on the Web, if the site hasn't been taken down or the knowledge suppressed by the British royal family and the British Museum to keep the ignorant, unwashed masses from panicking.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 06:34 PM

That (the Easter Island Walk-About routine) is pretty much the same method Olive Whatnoll uses to get "'er 'usband Eddie" to the downtown sidewalks on the rare occasions when the Queen makes an appearance in "'Ull"...or for some other event at which attendance is considered absolutely obligatory. She has to get neighbours and relatives to help her do it, of course, to hold the ropes and so on. It takes a lot to get Eddie off the couch. (aside from a game of darts, that is)

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: open mike
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 06:43 PM

death valley dry lake bed..racetrack rocks move with the wind...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1hoiHvOeGc
another example of mysterious movement of rocks...

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 22 Jun 12 - 09:12 PM

Then there's "The Crawl" (from pub to pub in Greater Vancouver, BC) where Jesus was asked partway through, "We know you can walk on water but how can you walk on so much beer?"

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 07:41 AM

Once when I was just a young pup, the shop acquired a "new" punch press that stood about 9-1/2 feet tall and weighed something on the high side of 9,000 pounds. When it was delivered, the delivery truck had a fairly decent A-frame hoist to get it off the flat bed and put it on the ground just outside the shop door.

While we (3 of us, one over 150 lb, but the big guy was sort of "elderly") were getting set up to move it inside, the fellow from the auto shop across the alley volunteered the use of his A-Frame hoist (on a 15T truck) to pick it up and back it inside.

Problem:

9-1/2 ft tall press.

10 ft ceiling, with beams about 9-3/4 ft clear of the floor.

When he picked the press up on the hoist, he didn't notice that the "squat" of the truck was about 2-1/2 feet.

The first try didn't get the press off the ground, so he had to slack off and raise the A-Frame a bit past where it would clear the top door sill, but he "knew" that the load would pull it down enough to get it in.

When he finally backed it inside, and let out some cable, the A-Frame hit the ceiling well before the cable was slacked off enough to get the cable disconnected from the press.

After a considerable period of head-and-ball scratchin' and a few butt rubs, and a fair bit of kickin' clods around out in the drive the way good ol' boys do their thinkin' - it was obvious that the only way to get the truck out was to take the press with it (to hold the ass end of the A-Frame down far enough to clear the door), so the press ended up back on the driveway, right where it started from.

While our helpful neighbor parked his A-Frame, we went ahead settin' up like we'd started out to. I'm not sure whether he walked back over 'cause he felt obligated to try to help, or whether he just wanted to see how we planned to do it.

The big problem was that the "driveway" was soft sand with a few big hunks of gravel in it, so rollers wouldn't be much help until we got it on the concrete inside. We didn't have a sufficient number of fat asses to actually tip the $!#% thing, but by pulling (or prying) it sideways just a little bit we could shift the pivot point it would turn on when we stuck a prybar under the other side, and "swung" the hulk on the kink in the end of the prybar (a 5 ft hunk of an axle out of a ca. 1915 combine, with a little kink in one end).

Pivot one side 2 to 3 inches, shift sides, rotate the other way to shift another 2 or 3 inches on the other side, and then back to the first side. About 4 or 5 feet of that to get enough of it onto the concrete where it could be "pried" onto a half-inch water pipe roller.

Once we got all three pieces of pipe into play - and two at a time on the concrete, the other 14 feet to where the press needed to end up was "relatively easy," using the pry bar to "nudge" it a couple of inches at a time, although the rotation to point it the right way at the end took a couple of dozen "back and forths" since we couldn't roll it if the two rollers that were under it at any time were more than about 10 degrees askew of each other.

The "pivot-shift and rotate" method described in the article is exactly what it took for us to get our top-heavy monster to the point where rollers were useful. With a concrete floor, once we cleared the door, we could use small rollers that somewhat compensated for the lack of overhead clearance that prevented just "pickin' it up and movin' it." (We did switch to 1-1/2 inch pipe rollers once it was all on the hard surface.) On a softer surface, of course you'd have to have really big (large diameter) rollers to keep from sinkin' into the soil. (We'd have used bigger ones, since the bigger the roller the easier the roll, but we couldn't have cleared the overhead obstructions if we did.)

Every method that's been proposed as "how they did it" is pretty much in the trick bag of anyone who's ever moved much of any "heavy stuff," for the simple reason that those tricks are the only ways you get it done. I don't think any of the people in my "example" ever studied ancient primitive cultures, but I have difficulty believing that even primitive "furniture movers" would not have used all of the same exact methods (with minor adjustments to suit the available materials) that any competent trucker or lumper or warehouse meatball will use today to get the shit where it's supposed to be - because all of the methods proposed are obvious to the ones who do it.

It's also difficult for me to believe that one can pick one method that was used to the exclusion of others, since any "difficult move" inevitably requires combinations of multiple ones of the obvious methods.

While "we moderns" can calculate centers of gravity, tipping points, and pivot shift moments, and "primitives" might not have done the math, when you're doin' it, it still comes down to "if you're pullin' on a rope and the rope starts comin' at ya - RUN LIKE HELL OR GET SQUASHED."

Without artifacts, you might guess a path they moved their stones on, and say "on this 40 feet I'd do this, and then I'd do that. They'd probably have done it that way too." You'd be more likely to be right that anyone who insists they only had one "right" way.

(Incidentally, I've still got the pry bar if someone wants to try it out, but I don't do that kinda movin' much any more.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: GUEST,olddude
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 08:47 AM

wasn't it one of the Greek guys that said "give me a lever and I will move the earth"

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 08:51 AM

John-

Nicely described.

But it would have been easier if you had used a shanty.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Rapparee
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 09:33 AM

For years and years I've been saying that my ancestors were smart enough to move heavy stones and build pyramids without the help of space aliens.

I can't speak to the ancestors of other people.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 09:47 AM

Rapparee-

Mine were smart enough to do that as well but also smart enough to prioritize their creative energies brewing fermented fluids and imbibing the same. Here's to my ancestors!!!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 10:03 AM

Thanks for the link, charlie.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 03:09 PM

leeneia-

You're welcome. I think it's an interesting story of how theories evolve in an attempt to explain what we find lurking in the landscape.

Maybe some day someone will explain how a huge bronze statue ended up on a ledge overlooking Robinhood Cove here in Maine.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 03:11 PM

Sand pyramids? Nonsense.
The pyramids are built of quarried stone blocks; when the Egyptians were not cultivating crops, thousands worked on the pyramids, directed by architects.
Very little real information exists. Some of the architects and decorators seem to have been well-to-do, and were interred in decorated tombs. Few construction techniques, outside of those requiring modern constructio machinery, seem to have been unknown to the builders of the cities of the middle east and adjacent areas.

A possible story is pieced together in these BBC videos:
http://www.eyelid.co.uk/egyptian_videos/Building-Pyramid.html
Also see:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/pyramid3.htm

http://www.history.com/videos/the-great-pyramids-deconstructed#massive-stones-moved-to-build-monuments

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 24 Jun 12 - 04:21 AM

Hunted around for my old copy of Aku-Aku but no luck. As I recall this was less about Heyerdahl's experimental archaeology than it was about him accounting for various aspects of Easter Island culture, tradition & history. The secret of the 'walking Moai' was revealed to him by one of the islanders.

Do I recall a BBC documentary (not Heyderdahl) on this very issue back in the 1980s / 90s though? I remember seeing film footage of people walking Moai (or Moai reconstructions) but this was 20 years ago or so.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: gnu
Date: 24 Jun 12 - 02:31 PM

Q... "directed by architects."

No, by engineers. If architects had been in charge, there wouldn't be any corners... too easy to build and not enough fees. >;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jun 12 - 08:38 PM

"Sand pyramids? Nonsense." Q

Perhaps I should have mentioned that the friend who proposed the sand theory also maintained that in a fireworks exhibition, instead of a boom and an AH! and a boom and an AH! and a boom and an AH!, etc, they should set off the entire night's display at once; there would be one big AAAAAHHHHHH!!! and then everyone could go home.

My friend, who has since died - unrelated to his opinions - was not known for recognizing others' drummers.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Bert
Date: 24 Jun 12 - 11:33 PM

What the video doesn't tell you is that they got the idea of moving the statues like that, from the appliance guy who installed their refrigerator.

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 12:17 AM

Ah! I've got it. Now I know how they built the pyramids...

Have you seen how they deliver appliances nowadays? They don shoulder harnesses, snake a strap or straps under the appliance and cradle the behemoth between them as they walk into the building. Fast and efficient.

Of course the pyramid builders may have hired the tallest guys on the crews...

Subject: RE: BS: Easter Island Statue Walk-About
From: Charley Noble
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 08:42 AM

Very tall guys!

I remember once calculating how large a pyramid might be constructed from the granite excavated from a planned high level nuclear waste repository; it would have been ten times the height of the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble