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Turns out, the heads of Easter Island didn’t just sit there — they strutted their stuff.
After centuries of speculation about how the island’s ancient people managed to move nearly 1,000 colossal stone statues — each weighing up to 80 tons — across miles of rugged terrain, scientists say they’ve cracked the code.
The answer? The statues walked themselves there.
Using a mix of physics, 3D modeling and some prehistoric ingenuity, researchers at Binghamton University and the University of Arizona confirmed that the island’s iconic moai statues didn’t need aliens, magic or massive manpower to move — just a few ropes and some rhythm.
“Once you get it moving, it isn’t hard at all — people are pulling with one arm,” said Binghamton University anthropology professor Carl Lipo, co-author of the new study.
“It conserves energy, and it moves really quickly. The hard part is getting it rocking in the first place.”
Their findings line up perfectly with Rapa Nui oral traditions, which have long claimed the statues literally walked from the quarry where they were carved to their final resting places up to 10 miles away.
Lipo and co-researcher Terry Hunt studied nearly 1,000 moai and discovered that their curious design wasn’t accidental.
The statues’ wide, D-shaped bases and slight forward lean made them more likely to wobble their way forward in a side-to-side rocking motion — like a massive, 4-ton conga line.
“The physics makes sense,” Lipo explained. “What we saw experimentally actually works. And as it gets bigger, it still works. All the attributes that we see about moving gigantic ones only get more and more consistent the bigger and bigger they get, because it becomes the only way you could move it.”
To put their theory to the test, the team built a 4.35-ton replica moai with that signature forward lean.
With just 18 people and a handful of ropes, they “walked” the statue 100 meters in 40 minutes — far faster and easier than dragging it flat on its back.
The evidence doesn’t stop there. Easter Island’s mysterious network of “moai roads,” long thought to be ceremonial, now appears to have been functional — built specifically to guide the walking giants to their platforms, or ahu.
“Every time they’re moving a statue, it looks like they’re making a road. The road is part of moving the statue,” Lipo said.
These roads, roughly 15 feet wide and slightly concave, acted like ancient conveyor belts — steadying the statues as they swayed forward in a zig-zag motion.
Some toppled moai found alongside these paths even show signs of being re-righted by islanders who clearly refused to leave a fallen comrade behind.
For decades, experts believed the statues were dragged on wooden sleds — a puzzling theory for a treeless island. Lipo’s “walking” model not only fits the physics, but it also fits the island’s reality.
“It shows that the Rapa Nui people were incredibly smart. They figured this out,” said Lipo.
“They’re doing it the way that’s consistent with the resources they have. So it really gives honor to those people, saying, look at what they were able to achieve, and we have a lot to learn from them in these principles.”
As for anyone still clinging to old theories? Lipo has a challenge: “Find some evidence that shows it couldn’t be walking. Because nothing we’ve seen anywhere disproves that. In fact, everything we ever see and ever thought of keeps strengthening the argument.”
Looks like one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries is finally taking a step in the right direction.
As previously reported by The Post, a fresh face surfaced on Easter Island in 2023 — literally.
The then-new moai statue was uncovered in a dried-up volcano crater lake after a brutal drought drained the area, revealing the five-foot-tall stone figure staring skyward.
The volcanic island — about 2,000 miles off Chile’s coast — is world-famous for its 900-plus moai, carved by the Rapa Nui people as early as 1,100 A.D.
So, ultimately, when it came to moving mountains, the Rapa Nui just put one foot — or statue — in front of the other.
English (US)