Translated from:

https://gorojanin-iz-b.livejournal.com/88859.html

Translator's note: All of the images referenced in this site are visible in the original article at the above link.

The great mystery of the Easter Island icons

Made occasional comments in various magazines about the mysterious Easter Island statues and the mystery of their movements around the island, which I collected here until now. It's about time for a proper post.

Tried to find the earliest photo of the Easter Island icons.

There is only one early photo on the wiki allegedly from 1880.

Which was undoubtedly done in 1922, along with this.

The first photos of giant statues of the island appear only at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, although it was discovered in the 18th century. This means only one thing: the giant moai were made shortly before this milestone. In the order of making history Easter Island, aka Easter Island.

The first mention of the statues was in the book by the German author Behrens who sailed under the command of the Dutch captain Jacob Roggeven and allegedly saw statues, "Traveling in the southern countries and around the world in 1721-1722" published in 1737, and another century later in the found diary of Roggeven himself. But even a small annotation is enough to realize: this is not even a throw-in, but a mere fantasy. The simple fact refutes the "testimony" - in all the first photos the statues are buried, and some of them are still buried today.

"Most of all the Dutch were surprised by the huge statues, up to 30 feet or more in height. There were a great many of them, all standing on stone platforms, and the islanders paid all sorts of homage to these idols (clay idols, according to the Dutch). All the statues were draped with long strips of cloth, and these draperies hung from their shoulders to the very pedestal. On the heads of the statues were placed baskets filled with white stones... "*

No one has been able to confirm the discoveries attributed to Roggeven, or even learn anything about the life of this navigator after his description of his voyage by Behrens. So this "testimony" is just one of the fantasies of the extremely popular travel and adventure genre in the 18th century.

And this is how Roggeven's discovery was presented to his contemporaries.

"Idols of Easter Island." Reproduction of the original engraving (16.3 x 26 cm, Bayalus and Descartes, made during the expedition of Jacob Roggeven, 1722), preserved in the collection of the National History Museum.

Does this South Seas fantasy have anything to do with the real statues of Easter Island? No, of course not. There is not a single sitting statue on a pedestal on the island.

However, one statue is remotely similar to Roggevien's fantasy, but it is almost never shown to the public. It is very unfortunate, not made in the style of the other statues, and there is some wire from the frame sticking out right in front of the eyes.

In 1770 the Spanish captain Felipe Gonzalez de Ahedo Wikipedia on two ships sent by the Viceroy of Peru, rediscovered the island, annexed it in favor of the Spanish King Charles III, studied it, described the appearance and occupation of the locals, compiled a dictionary of a hundred words, solemnly signed with the inhabitants the annexation treaty.

There is a 1903 edition book about Spanish Captain Felipe González's voyage to Easter Island The Voyage of Captain Don Felipe González to Easter Island. 1770-1.

Verbatim translation from here , from p.181:

"We were persuaded that what we took to be pyramid-shaped bushes were really statues or representations of idols worshipped by the natives; they are made of stone, and are so high and full that they appear to be huge thick columns, and, as I subsequently ascertained by examining them and taking their dimensions, the whole body consists of one block, and the crown or headdress of another; on the upper surface of the latter there is a small concavity into which they place the bones of their dead, from which it may be inferred that they serve both as idols and funeral pyres. But it is difficult to see how they could mount such magnificent statues and keep them properly balanced on so many small stones, which are placed in a base or pedestal that supports their great weight. The material of the statue-very hard stone, and therefore weighty; having tried it himself with a hoe, he struck the fire: a proof of its density. The crown is made of another stone, which is found in abundance on the island, but I have seen nothing like this figure: it is very crudely made. The only peculiarity in the configuration of the face is the rough notch for the eyes: the nostrils are rather imitated, and the mouth extends from ear to ear, as indicated by a small groove or notch in the stone. The neck bears some resemblance; the arms and legs are absent, and it runs from the neck downwards as a roughly cut torso. The diameter of the crown is much larger than that of the head on which it rests, and its lower edge protrudes well beyond the figure's forehead; a position which causes one to wonder that it does not fall... "*

What's that all about? Pyramidal statues, mouth from ear to ear, with a basket of bones, and stone sparks from hitting with an iron hoe... The author of the description, no doubt, has not seen, touched, or struck the statues with a hoe.

In 1772, Felipe made a map of the island.

Three quite conventional idols were mapped, taking them out to sea and not even following their own description.

This drawing was made by the English artist William Hodges, a member of the second expedition of James Cook that landed on the island on March 12, 1774.

There is no such place or similar statues, it is clear that the images are made from the head. Two ideas that the artist sought to convey are obvious: a very large antiquity and the presence of hats. Researchers, explaining the complete dissimilarity of the place and the statues, cautiously say that the artist made a drawing from memory.

It is not difficult to notice, that set of witnesses and writers of giants of the subsequent years simply took as a basis this drawing of the artist of crew of Cook and modified in the own way.

There is a more candid testimony, with less artistic skill, from John Gilbert, captain of the second Cook expedition vessel. It is preserved in the National Archives of the United Kingdom.

Map and sketches of Easter Island from J Gilbert's log of the voyage of HMS Resolution through the Pacific from 1772-5. This image is from the collections of The National Archives*.

Jean-François La Perouse. Voyage around the world on the Bussolie and the Astrolabe. 1786.

"The largest of these crudely made busts, standing on pedestals, which we measured, numbered not more than sixteen feet six inches high, seven feet six inches wide at shoulder level, three feet thick in the middle, six feet wide, and five feet thick at the base. These busts, I say, may well have been the work of the people now inhabiting this island, and their number, I believe, and without exaggeration, may be two thousand. "*

Fantasy again.

First, the moai are again on pedestals missing in kind.

Secondly, 16 feet 6 inches tall the largest statue is 5 meters tall.

There is a pencil drawing from life, made on April 9, 1786, by Duche de Vans, a member of the La Perouse team.

This is clearly not about those statues in real life. The author hasn't seen the island's statues and hasn't measured the biggest ones. Which, in case you don't know, are from 10 to 11 and a half meters.

What is especially interesting, on the map of the well-studied western part of the island La Perouse even put individual trees - a rarity for the island. Giant statues found no place. Open the full size and admire.

In April 1804 Captain J.F. Lisyansky stood for several days near Easter Island on the ship "Neva", waiting for I.F. Kruzenshtern on the ship "Nadezhda". He did not go down himself, but looked at the island from the sea and noticed several statues, while he sent lieutenant Pavlishin to the island, from whose words he gave a description of the statues in his book "Journey Around the World in 1803, 4, 5 and 1806. St. Petersburg, 1812. Ч. 1.

The only detail in the book says that it is not close to the famous moai. The height of the Lisyansky-Povalishin statues is three meters, plus the meter hats.

"The skiff stood so close to the shore that one could clearly see several dwellings and the stone of which the nearby monuments or statues were made. According to Povalishin's instructions, they were about 13 feet [4 m] high. The fourth part of them was a cylinder placed on the heads of the statues. "*

The Russian navigator O.E.Kotzebu, familiar with the works of Cook and La Perouse, visited the island in March 1816 and did not find any statues, despite all his efforts, but saw only a pile of stones and decided that it is the former statues. He honestly reported about that in his book "Journey to the Southern Ocean and Bering Strait to search for the north-east sea passage" *. SPb., 1821. Ч. 1.

In 1825 the captain of the ship "Blossom", a naval officer, polar explorer, hydrographer, later the head of the maritime department, Rear Admiral, President of the Royal Geographical Society Frederick William Beachy described in detail the island, the relief, the manners of the residents, with whom the trade did not succeed. Didn't see any statues, destroyed them. See the book Narrative of a voyage to the Pacific and Beering's strait, to co-operate with the polar expeditions: performed in His Majesty's ship Blossom, under the command of Captain F.W. Beechey in the years 1825, 26, 27, 28, description of the island from page 58.

In 1837 a French voyager, encyclopaedist scientist, oceanographer, who had made three voyages around the world, who had never been to Easter Island, Jules Sébastien César Dumont-Durville in his book General voyage around the world, containing extracts from the voyages of hitherto most famous navigators. Part VI gave free rein to the imagination, painting huge ancient monuments from 10 to 15 feet (3-4.5 m), the largest - 20 feet (6 m). Admire.

The fantasy is illustrated by a member of the Dumont-Durville Senson Expeditions.

As you can see, the illustrator did not strain his imagination, using the same drawing by Hodges, Cook's team artist, and transferring to it the portrait description of the maestro.

In 1838 the French explorer Abel Aubert du Petit-Toire again saw statues, not even one, but what! Pyramidal ones from Felipe Gonzalez and never before or now seen red ones with white hats. In the report Voyage autour du monde sur la frégate "la Vénus" pendant les années 1836-1839. Tome 2 on the island, beginning on page 221: *"We also noticed on the shore stones in the shape of pyramids, of dark colour, spaced at equal distances from each other; were surmounted by a white stone in the shape of a capitol. Next to these peculiar monuments a large number of white stones could be seen, which sometimes seemed to be lined up in a certain order. It is very likely that these pyramids, as well as these stones, indicate burial sites. On the west coast, before arriving at Cook Inlet, we noticed two or three monuments of another genre, which are platforms upon which are placed four red statues with tops covered with white stones or capitals."

In 1868 the British warship Topaz arrived and the ship's doctor J. L. Palmer found no stone statues. "He proved inquisitive enough, to quote Heyerdahl's book, *to inquire into the archaeology of the island, as well as the local customs and pagan wares which the Paschal people were hiding from the missionaries.

In various publications, Palmer (1870 a, p. 111; 1870 b, p. 180; 1875, p. 287) relates that he was shown a number of wooden crafts carefully preserved by the islanders...

The Easterlings had a different attitude to stone figurines. The inquisitive ship doctor recorded that there were small stone sculptures on the island, but he was not shown them, unlike the wooden craftsmen, and could not exchange anything. He learned only that these sculptures do not have elongated ears, as stone giants do (Palmer, 1875, p. 287).

Also in 1868, the Bishop of Tahiti Tepano Jossan received a collection of rongo-rongo tablets and artifacts from the missionary Eugène Ayrault, who had arrived on Easter Island in 1864 and established the first European settlement in 1866 with the priest Hippolyte Roussel and associates. In the description of the items sent to the office of the Congregation, along with the real ones, there is a sketch of the statue of moai. But such that it is immediately obvious that the authors of the certificate with the description have not seen any moai in the eyes. The fate of this statue is unknown, of course))

It's us who are smiling now. But the famous traveler, ethnographer N.N. Miklukho-Maklai, dreaming to see the statues, had no time for laughter. He himself arrived at Rapa Nui, the Easter Island, but he could not go down and examine the monuments because of fever. In the book [Voyage of the Vityaz corvette, November 1870 - September 1871, Rapa Nui, Pitkairn and Mangareva Islands] (http://bit.do/fMJkb), first published from a manuscript in 1872, he wrote with bitterness about the neglect of the small statues that were described until now. Unaware of what large, majestic giants would appear very soon.

I regretted very much, and it was a pity to me, being in sight of the island, not to visit it, not to examine those important documents of the former life of the islanders, which make Rapa Nui the only island of its kind in the Pacific Ocean. Rapa Nui is the only island of its kind in the Pacific. It was all the more unfortunate to me that the travellers (Very many mariners have visited the island of Rapa Nui. Rapa Nui. Beginning with Roggeven, who discovered the island ^24^, Cook, La Perouse, Kotzebue ^25^, Kruzenshtern ^26^, Beachy, Du Petit Thoir ^27^ and others tell of their stay on this island, but all descriptions and pictures are more than insufficient if one wishes to gain an idea of these monuments, rather than being satisfied with the report that there are large stone idols ^28^ on Rapa Nui. It is even very probable that, besides the colossal stone figures, there are on the island less enormous but no less interesting antiquities ^29^) who have seen these [61] remarkable monuments, have only looked at them with eyes of wonder or indifference, and none of them have endeavoured to study in detail and closely these remarkable specimens of Polynesian art, which are still almost as unknown as they were in 1721. (Error in the manuscript. should be: in 1722), when Roggeven first described them.

A last more complete and interesting account was given by Mr. Palmer, a doctor on the English ship Topaz, who was on Rapa Nui in the fifties ^30^, and by Mr. Gana, commander of the Chilean corvette O'Giggins, who visited the island last year (a brief report Luis Ignacio Gana on this interesting expedition is printed in the annual report of the Chilean Ministry of the Sea to the People's Congress (see ^31. note on p. 59) ^31^). The Chilean expedition confirmed in the main [63] features the news already reported by Mr. Palmer, that not all the stone idols were destroyed (Beachy brought the news that all the colossal statues at Rapa Nui were destroyed, but the Du-Pti-Toire already after him refuted this report. The confirmation of Palmer's account by Mr. Ghana therefore carries weight, because some writers, such as G. Gerland (see: Waitz Theodor. Anthropologie der Naturvolker. T. V. 2 Abth., fortgesetzt von G. Gerland, Leipzig, 1870. S. 225), doubted the correctness of the details reported by Mr. Palmer) that many were still standing, others overturned, but still intact, that the principal place of their dressing was near the edge of the Utuiti volcano described by Mr. Palmer, and that in some places they could still be seen to have stood in former times, namely on high platforms or altars ^32^. Various objects were brought on the corvette O'Giggins, which were given to the Ethnological Museum at St. Jago, where I had occasion and pleasure to see them. Besides the large idol (This idol, 1 1/2 m high, was deliberately chosen as the smallest among the enormous ones, of which some reached, according to Roggeven, up to 12 m in height (see: Gerland. S. 224). On the "Topaz" one of the idols of Rapa Nui was taken to England, another on the French frigate "La Flore" was sent to France ^33^) of black lava ^34^, in the mentioned museum there are 4 bas-reliefs... "*

The French corvette "Flore" was on the island in January 1872. Not a single complete statue was found again. According to a report by Admiral François Tedore de Lapelin, *"for want of a complete statue in good preservation which could easily be transported, we had to content ourselves with cutting off the head from a discarded statue which was lying face down and which was too heavy to load it whole" * (Lapelin T. de. L'Ile de Paques (Rapa-Nui) // Revue Maritime et Coloniale. Paris, 1872. T. 35. P. 106).

That's her, 188 cm. Now in the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris).

Since Miklukho-Maklai visited Easter Island six months before the "Flore" and finished his essay in August - September 1871, he could not know about the events which took place later. It is left to assume that during the joint anchorage of "Vityaz" and "Flore" in Valparaiso (see about it: Kr. vest. 1871. No 78) Miklukho-Maklai learned about the plans connected with the forthcoming visit to the island. Easter Island by a French corvette and the intention to transport one of the Rapa Nui sculptures to France. Judging from Lapelin's report, one can assume that the statue delivery was part of his preliminary plans.

The report was filed by the captain. At this time, a young midshipman, who also helped saw the head, Louis Marie-Julien Viot, sketched a drawing, on the basis of which he would later write a watercolor and use it in his book in 1899, as a venerable writer in the genre of travel and adventure. To him we will turn below, he deserves it, but meanwhile, let us admire the picture of the unknown gentleman. Underneath it is the inscription, "Easter Island, January 7, 1872, at about 5 a.m., the islanders are watching my arrival."

Where do the statues resemble the originals, executed in kind?

Pure fantasy of the travel and adventure genre. Although there is a resemblance to the sawed-off head of these monsters, this head is not the glorified moai.

The first ever relatively close and real representation. A drawing by the artist Alexandre de Bara based on a sketch by French ethnographer Alphonso Pinard, who visited Easter Island in 1877. This is an officers' camp in the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano on Easter Sunday, 1877.

It is clear that such statues do not exist there either. Scientists explain the fantasy by the fact that the artist deliberately depicted the unprecedented in order to show different stages of readiness of the statues being cut down and carved.

But that's not what matters.

The drawing is outstanding.

First, it gives away that neither the scientist nor the artist had any idea about the actual statues, whose heads cannot stand on a rock base because they have torsos buried in the ground.

The second and most important thing: in reality, the scientist and the artist could only see such statues buried up to their necks.

Pinard published this drawing in the French geographical travel magazine Le tour du monde in 1878 in an essay on the island with his other three sketches.

Two of them are fantastic.

The third is undeniably real. There were not many real moai when the explorer was on the island in 1877.

The drawing quite reliably points to the period of the beginning of work on the moulding of the statues and the readiness of the very first - the end of the 1870s.

But this was still done quietly for many years and remained almost unknown to the public. Even as late as 1909, the encyclopaedic dictionary Brockhaus-Efrona still knew nothing about prominent idols. The article lists other landmarks and events: **"Easter Island or Waihu, the easternmost of the islands of Polynesia, 118 sq. km., 150 inhabitants; discovered 1722 on Easter Day, 1888 occupied by Rep. Chile. Ruins of ancient temples".

In 1886, a large expedition, which arrived on the ship "Mohican", began its three-year work on the island. A total study of the island was carried out, everything that should be described, starting from flora, fauna and geology, maps were made, objects were systematized, in particular 113 ritual platforms of Ahu, countless artifacts, Rongo-Rongo tablets were collected, dictionaries were compiled, the life, housing, occupation of the aborigines were described... The results were summarized in 1891 in a report Te Pito te Henua; or, Easter Island by the Assistant Commander of the U.S. Navy, a Civil War hero, retired Rear Admiral, the expedition's Chief and Treasurer William Judah Thomson.

The report is surprising in that the island's most outstanding treasure, the moai statues, received scant attention.

It's worth showing everything.

There's another one buried near the ahu.

One statue, not the classic moi, stands on the ahu, one dropped.

The island, I report or recall, has 887 moai (886 with the incident at the end of the post; it is unlikely that the crumbling moai is restorable). The expedition, which aimed to create essentially an encyclopedia of the island, describes not even a percentage. How is this to be understood? In the only way: there were no others.

In the "quarry" with two "billets of statues", the expedition recorded a surprising thing: the "billet" is one.

Having a camera, Thomson's expedition for some reason does not use it to record moai, except for the only time. Of course, this is the place on the slope where the first moai appeared in 1877 near Pienaar. The statues, as we can see, have appreciably increased.

The place is famous. Comparing this single photo with the real view, we see that Thomson has one, upper statue extra, i.e. the image is a photomontage.

Guess from seven guesses whether the head of the expedition, a high ranking officer of the Navy, was aware that he was putting a fake in the report?

And what else did the expedition do for three years, besides the declared activities?

And doesn't this extra moai in the report remind us of the frequent facts of simplification of projects in the cycle of making history?

Now, as promised, back to the midshipman Vio, who in 1872 helped Captain Lepelin saw the head of the best-preserved fallen statue. His military career failed, but he became a wealthy prosperous writer Pierre Loti. He wrote dozens of novels in the fashionable genre of travel and adventure in exotic countries, was so exotic and eccentric in life as his novels, made wives in the countries he visited, became the author of one of Europe's first novels about same-sex male love, agitated light, was shot naked, collected all kinds of things up to the mummies of Egyptian cats, and the really valuable artifacts and documents...

In 1899, the writer recalled visiting the island in his youth and published Rapa Nui, a book about it. The exuberant fantasy descriptions of numerous ancient ruins and statues which he never saw are of no value (read it here if you're interested), it's just a tribute to the fashionable theme. What's really interesting are the illustrations, which in numerous editions of the book were all marked 1872. In fact, these are all that had time to appear on the island by the early 20th century. It is clear that the popular writer had to "legitimize" it all.

Five of these drawings were found in the Gallisa library from the writer's archive. Loti inscribed with his own hand that they are from Alphonse Pinat of 1877-78. Which is also doubtful - we showed what Pinat himself saw. He too was eccentric, but in a different way: he borrowed money, hammered out grants to travel and acquire artefacts, amassed stunning collections that adorned the collections of many museums, invested more in ethnography than he had, died in poverty, selling his library and leaving his widow to work as a laundress. Pinat may well have redeemed these testimonies as well.

And a couple of other innovations from Loti that the island was entering the 20th century with.

As we see, sailors did not often visit the island with such remarkable, large, unique, unique in the world statues. And when they visited, up to the end of 1870s, and many after that, they saw some quite different statues, or did not see any at all.

It means only one thing: there were no the present remarkable statues during these visits, the first realistic image appeared only in the end of 1870th. And the first work that introduced the real statues to a wide range of readers was the book The Mystery of Easter Island: The Story of an Expedition published by Catherine Rutledge (1866-1935) in 1919.

The writer arrived on the island in 1915, with her husband William Rutledge (1859-1939), whom English Wiki presents as a British ethnographer, anthropologist and adventurer. Catherine herself ended her days in a psychiatric hospital. Such is the authorship of the great history, legends and mysterious cult of the Bird Man of the Rapa Nui people, in science the creator of the statues.

The island is a model for the creation of a nation's history in miniature. A kind of testing ground of the history makers' workshop. Certainly, there were no wars, kings, dynasties on this island, nobody and nothing, except Katherine Rutledge's records, confirmed. Everything is made up from scratch and revealed to the public in the 19th year of the 20th century. Including moai statues in all their glory. It is a complete novodel, and even the formwork has not been removed from all the statues in the first photo session.

Having solved the origins, let's look at the works of the creators of the island's history with the help of modern photo equipment. It is necessary to look at the icons with modern technology to understand that they have nothing to do with the "quarry".

The same equipment will also help find the answer to the main question, torturing generations of scientists: how did the aborigines move the icons?

Answer: no way)) Only scientists can suffer such foolishness - to cut down unreachable icicles and drag them over mountains and dales. They are made on site. The statues were molded by a solid mixture with volcanic tuff in the composition in the pits on the mountain slopes in light forms, the ground was discarded. All in all.

In the first photos used in Rutledge's book, the moai have just been excavated - the light tan has not had time to cover the underground parts of the statues. The British Museum, which recently exhibited these photos, writes that they were taken between 1914 and 1915. More likely 1915, the year the Rutledge couple arrived on the island.

Note that the "half-cut" in the "quarry" "blanks" were molded on a flat surface. They are not intended for installation at all, at once were made as lying.

The most convenient time for molding most of the giant moai statues is quite clearly seen in the history of the annexation of the island by the Chilean administration (and all states and departments, we remember, support the history-making program, such as in Mexico ...) in 1888. Lieutenant Captain of the Chilean Navy and commander of the cruiser Esmeralda, a veteran of the Russo-Turkish War in the British Navy and of the Pacific, the Chilean Toro Urcado Policarpo, in the previous Chilean expedition of 1870 under Luis Ignacio Gana, serving as Cadet, occupied the island, having previously negotiated and settled financial issues with the property owners, the British, the French, the Catholic mission. The new power, in his person, established a colony of three families, assigned the natives to a village-reservation, and surrounded it with a border fence. The rest of the island, over 90% of the area, was leased to the Scottish-Chilean Williamson-Balfour Company, specializing in minerals, for sheep breeding. This is a bit inconsistent with the dating of the drawings with the first plausible moai. So the creators definitely didn't start out under the wing of the company. Which doesn't prevent them from successfully and extensively continuing under it.

Some authors write about the camp and penal colony established by the Chilean authorities. There is a reason, the convicts were noted on the monuments of Palmyra, [and Egypt] (http://bit.do/fKgi4), but on Easter Island it is not confirmed.

The material for the molds, it is not difficult to guess, was good old celluloid, discovered in 1839, aka parquetzine. Not the plastic of the 20th century, but the very first, not familiar to the current generation. It both burns like gunpowder, instantly and strongly (back in the 1960s, Soviet kids made rockets out of cardboard tubes with photographic film, still retaining this property of first celluloid), and decomposes by itself without any special effects over the years.

Below is the rest of the photographic archive from which Kathryn Rutledge took the phtographs for her book. Gorgeous shots a few seasons after creation, when the grass has barely had time to grow after digging, and not everywhere.

How is it possible that generations of researchers for a century and a half have not noticed such beauty?

Note: under Thomson in 1886-89, this moai was only in draft form; in reality, it was turned the other way.

Surely moai were made in groups at once - a couple of these must have been molded at the same time.

Probably a failed attempt by the creators to "put up" the moai by removing the soil. It fell and fell apart. Henceforth they thought it best to leave the digging up to the scientists.

The modern apparatus sees more than the century-old Rutledge apparatus.

The eye on the spot may not notice on such texture, but a good lens will see the extraneous objects inevitable with such mega-forming.

And a bricked-up brick.

Three more photos of this idol with a brick. Open the full photos and look.

And the favorite wire of all ancient civilizations. Taken together with the year of appearance of artifacts in science and media - what doubts can there be about the age of manufacture?

For the netizens of geology, let me tell you: volcanic tuff includes fragments of other rocks, but not square bricks or wires. And natural inclusions cannot stick out with any external processing. They are bound to be knocked down. So they can stick out only at gradual hardening-drying of mass, slightly losing volume.

Well and to avoid any doubts of scientists of academic and alternative sciences, for them made, as in Egypt near Aswan, a quarry with a couple of "unfinished icicles". One cannot climb over them or look at them closely, but professional photo equipment is not prohibited to the author of the picture, like in Egypt. This is enough to see that this molding has the same stains and constructions as the icons that were allegedly cut down and dragged around the island - there was nothing for the wretched Rapa nui to do...

The statues, of course, are not reinforced. They just booted up whatever junk they could find.

Recently, a pickup truck drove into a moai statue. The pickup didn't care, but the statue was in little lumps.

Тут галерейка . И опять посторонние включения. Но не армирование, с ним бы статуя уцелела, а какие-то палки, мусор - вон они справа на ближнем плане. Бутовали все подряд в этого моаи...

The incident showed that statues made of fragile volcanic tuff are not only unreachable, but also incredibly fragile.

This makes the task of academic and alternative science scientists much more difficult.

They must not only contrive to deliver at all ends, for example, two large moai weighing 80 tons at a distance of 3.6 and 5 km, but also not to break them. What should be the area of application of the pulling force capable of moving 80 tons? And on what surface should the 80-ton idols slide so as not to break and not to rub off the protruding parts? That's the way to set the goal, not to roll upright statues in the scale of less weight and greater strength on a hard, level surface.

There is also an unfinished building 21 meters long and weighing an estimated 270 tons.

As for the few small and little like the present sculptures actually seen by travelers in the 18th and 19th centuries, they still stand in the British Museum. In the Rutledge collection, donated to the museum, among other artefacts found, stolen, traded in the half century before her, among other objects, there are statues much smaller than those made on the island. Rather, they should be regarded as sketches.

Here's the only one that looks like it, it's 2.3 meters tall.

The rest are more like sketches, not very successful, made as models for forms until the master found the right image.

One or two of these small statues may well be real. But they will remain in history only as unsightly exhibits in addition to the giant statues on the island.

In the story, the unfortunate Rapa Nui, along with scientists, journalists, and the public network will forever be chopping and dragging the unreachable statues made by molding in the ground on a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

Since we are talking about the history of Rapa Nui made in literature, let's remember the "writing" as well. The creators of history also endowed the legendary people with it, as without it! [Several tablets Rongo Rongo] (http://bit.do/fMDoo) made in the middle of the 19th century on plaques of tespeze - a sacred tree of the Polynesian islands for ritual figures and tribal drums, from European oar, European ship planking, and also from podocarpus, a tree growing in South Africa. The slats are 0.2-0.7 m long, plus a 1.26 m long stick stick stick.

Scientists have established that the rongo rongo does not belong to any known writing system. Rapanui people who understand the tablets have not been found, no other inscriptions have been found anywhere but on the island, they have not been able to decipher to this day. And they won't be able to. Because it is done out of the head, without any sense, just as a necessary attribute of history - "writing".

Wit and health.

Other history-making materials](http://bit.do/fMJxh)

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