Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Foundation

Volume 20 | Issue 1 Article 8

2006 Moving 101 Vincent Lee

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Recommended Citation Lee, Vincent (2006) "Moai Moving 101," Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation: Vol. 20 : Iss. 1 , Article 8. Available at: https://kahualike.manoa.hawaii.edu/rnj/vol20/iss1/8

This Commentary or Dialogue is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Hawai`i Press at Kahualike. It has been accepted for inclusion in Rapa Nui Journal: Journal of the Easter Island Foundation by an authorized editor of Kahualike. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Lee: Moai Moving 101 MOAI MOVING 101 "first," a far as I can tell, and we know with orne certainty Comments by Vincent Lee that it works. Preci ely as the ancient Egyptians moved gran­ ite block and obeli ks from the quarrie of A wan downriver to Thebes and Luxor, this team proposes ea transport of IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE that even the most prescient ancient moai from to their ahu. A canal is imagined Rapa ui could have fore een that his peoples' beloved moai from the quarry to the sea and boats posited able to upport would in time become gift to the entire world. For those of the load . The fact that no trace of such a canal exi t today us obse ed with the mechanics of how 1110ai were moved amidst the everal obvious haul roads that still cri s-cros the and/or erected, they have been gifts that keep on giving. We i land i not mentioned. or is the difficulty of landing and may never know "how it was done," but until omeone carve unloading a huge and heavily laden boat through the near­ a really big moai (say 30 tons) from the face of Rano Raraku, constant urf that batters the island's uniformly rocky shore­ lower it to the foot of the cliffs, moves it to a ea-coa t ahu line. and leaves it standing on its pedestal with an appropriately The last idea is one dear to my own heart, utilizing a it large perched atop it head, we won't even know how does lever to move a "walking platform. "Having per onal it "could have been done." Many of us have devised clever experience with levers, my first observation is that they only solutions to this or that part of the problem, but none of us work if they have omething bombproof to push again t on has yet attempted, let alone solved, the entire puzzle. And 0 the ground. Otherwi e they imply dig a hole and "kick out" it is with the most recent entrants onto the field, the students when force is applied. Even assuming a prepared road of of MIT professor Herbert H. Einstein. some ort, lever only work well in a near-vertical position, The tudents have propo ed two variations on existing with maximum force directed forward, rather than up or theme and two entirely new movement scheme . Before down. Finally, even a moderate load require lot of near­ offering a brief critique of each, I would offer them the arne vertical lever, many more than the two presumably very advice I give to others who occasionally contact me about large one propo ed here with as many as 50 people some­ this: "Try it out with a really big rock, and see what hap­ how manipulating each. pens." The tran ition from paper to desktop to the real world This proposal, I think, brings us back to where we started, to i not ju t a matter of scale. The real world differ from the the interface between the desktop and the field. fir t two in ome predictable and all sorts of unexpected way , and it is the e differences that usually settle the i ue. REFERE CES The cla sic example is rollers, which to their credit, none of Adam, J. P. 1988. Ie Pasques compose. Paris: Seuil. the MIT student propo e to use. Making rollers that are per­ Heyerdahl, T. 1958. Aku Aku - The Secret ofEaster 1 land. fectly traight, cylindrically true and of precisely equal di­ ew York: Rand Mc ally. ameter from tree trunks i n't easy, nor is finding a perfectly Lee, Vincent R. 1998. Rapa ui Rocks: Impressions from a flat place to u e them. Perhaps things were simpler for the Brief Visit. Rapa Nui Journal, 12(3)1998:69-72. Rapa ui, unencumbered as they were by paper or de ktops, Loret, 1. H. and R. Hemm, 1997. EI ino's. One of the but urrounded instead by crooked tree and rolling terrain. Earth's most destructive phenomena may have pelled Method I and 2 are both upright movement idea , the fir t disaster for the inhabitant of Easter Island. The Explor­ on a "rocking foot" made of bent poles and the econd rock­ ers Journal. Spring 1997:22-25. ing the moai directly on it base, "refrigerator tyle." I think Love, C. 1990. How to Make and Move an Ea ter 1 land Charlie Love has shown that the latter method work , on flat Statue. State and Perspectives of Scientific Research in ground anyhow, but raises hell with the soft base of the moai Easter island Culture. Frankfurt: For chungsinstitut in ways we don't find evidence of in the field. It al 0 leaves Senckenberg. begging a bit, the question of the pukao. Rocking a refrigera­ Mulloy, W. 1970. A Speculative Recon truction of Tech­ tor with a washing machine balanced on it top eem ri ky niques of Carving, Tran porting and Erecting Ea ter I­ bu ine at be t, and even if secured somehow, the pukao land Statue. Archeology and Physical Anthropology in would dramatically raise the center of gravity of the whole, to Oceana. 1-23. the erious detriment ofstability. Pavel, P. 1990. Reconstructions of the Transport of Moai. The arne problem haunts the "rocking foot" scheme, that State and Perspectives of SCientific Research in Easter nevertheless theoretically protects the moai ba e. I ay theo­ island Culture. Frankfurt: Forschungsin titut Sencken­ retically since the details of a rocker able to support a thirty berg. ton moai and withstand the multiple twisting movement of a Van Tilburg, 1. A. 1994. Easter island Archeology, Ecology cross-island march might be daunting. And what happens if it and Culture. London: Press. wears out en route, or wor e, break? The numerou halts for Van Tilburg, 1. A. 1996. Mechanics, Logistic and Econo­ the repair and restructuring of the sled used in the 1994 mics ofTransporting Easter Island (Rapa ui) Statue, OVA project took much more time than moving the moai, Rapa Nui Journal, Vol. 10. which at least lay there unthreateningly in a prone position through it all. Somehow, I think the Rapanui worried about that sort of thing and tried to avoid methods with any likeli­ hood at all offailure in mid-transport. The third proposal has the di tinction of being an island

Rapa ui Journal 52 Vol. 20 (1) May 2006

Published by Kahualike, 2006 1