Located at 27°08′37″ South and 109°26′10″ West, Easter Island has been home to one of the most conspicuous, yet perplexing monuments of the world. These monument sculptures come in the form of giant heads built out of volcanic tuff and are also known as the Easter Island Statues. These structures include a body beneath the sand and they all weigh several tens of thousands of pounds apiece. Their size and mass make them extremely difficult to move without the utilization of modern technological advances. This leads to the question that experts have been pondering for centuries. “How did they get here?” We know the process in which they were made, but archaeologists are unsure about how the statues were moved to their precise location today. …show more content…
With volcanoes on each of its corners, this triangularly shaped isle contains a very rocky and elevated coastline, which gives this island a natural barrier against invaders. The island has three freshwater lakes, the largest being a mile in diameter. These water sources, along with the ocean, provide fertile and rich nutrition to the landscape, which allowed a bountiful supply of trees to be made. These features would have attracted many settlers. In fact, the natural aspects of this island are the reason that the Rapa Nui people came and were able to make such enormous replicas of their …show more content…
After a volcanic eruption, they would look for volcanic tuff, or hardened ash, to carve their statues out of. They would chip away at the wall until the structure was only held in position by one stone “kickstand”. Once the sculpture was complete, it would be broken off its keel, slid down the cliff of tuff (horizontally), and the coral or obsidian eyes would be added as a finishing touch. At this stage in the process, the monument was ready to be transported to its ahu, or a stone platform/foundation that held a few
Discovery of Statues in Lagash Lagash was one of the oldest cities in Sumer and Babylonia. Today it is represented by a long line of ruin mounds, which are rather low, now known as Tello al-Hiba in Iraq. Located northwest of the junction of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers, and east of the ancient city of Uruk, it is positioned on the dry bed of an ancient canal, approximately 10 miles north of the modern town of Shatra. # The ruins of Lagash were discovered in 1877 by Ernest de Sarzec, a Frenchman, who was allowed by the Montefich chief, Nasir Pasha, to excavate the site at his pleasure in the territories under the governing of Nasir Pasha.
The statue of Hatshepsut seated down is made with the material limestone. This limestone is lightly colored, which created a larger contrast with the other statues nearby. Her face was carved bringing out her eyes, eyebrows and other facial features. Her eyebrows also come slightly together towards the middle. Her lips forming a slight archaic smile. The dimensions are larger than an average female size. The statue is of great size, yet still in proportion. The body and head fit well with each other overall. However, it is greatly exaggerated in size.
The Statue of a kouros and the Portrait statue of a boy both depict similar subjects, however are greatly different in how they accomplish this task. Through detail, or lack there of, the Greeks and Romans are able to display a certain value they have in its members. These two statues were made about 500 years apart and approach the sculpting process quit differently. The Greek statue seems to use geometric exaggerated lines to form the body while the Romans use a more realistic approach and sculpt the body with a more rounded finish. Statue of a kouros, from about 590 B.C and Portrait of a boy, from about the first century, do not share any great technical aspects and are basically nothing alike.
Easter Island, or as some would call it “Rapa Nui,” was one of the most isolated islands in the world that was inhabited by humans. The island does not have a lot of wood and other resources and yet, when the first travelers discovered the island, it was full of huge carved stones statues. Around the twentieth century they discovered that when the first settlers came to the island, it was rich with resources and bountiful land. The first settlers also had a complex society with a hierarchy and sophisticated religious rituals. According to Barzin Pakandam, from the London School of Economics, The inhabitants of Rapa Nui are the descendants of a group of Polynesian settler colonists. It was estimated that at first there were only twenty to thirty settlers that arrived on the island. They arrived on large conjoined sea-faring canoes built for long distance travel. The settlers brought many traditional Polynesian staple foods with them including chickens, rats (considered a delicacy), taro, yam, sweet potato, bananas, gourds, paper mulberry, turmeric, and arrowroot. Archaeologists and historians assume that the origins of the Islanders are the archipelago chain of the Mangareva’s (Pakandam, 2009, p. 9). First, researchers were interested in how these settlers carved the statue and transported them all over the island, but they changed their focus to the theories of how the islanders was driven to collapse. The researchers came up with different theories as to why the islanders were driven to collapse and they are still debating which theory is the right one.
Between the years 300BC-400BC, a group of inhabitants landed ashore the island of Easter Island, also known as Rapa Nui. Once ashore, these settlers began collecting resources and learned to survive with no help from the outside, stranded on an island in the middle of the Pacific. They created methods to hunt, fish, make clothing, and cook food properly. In addition, the people of Rapa Nui also separated into different groups or tribes. These tribes coexisted on the island for some time – until civil wars broke out across the island. The inhabitants of Rapa Nui disappeared from the island without a trace. The cause of their disappearance is unknown although experts believe the inhabitants of Rapa Nui were irresponsible with their resources.
As one of the greatest structures in Rome, the Pantheon was built between 118 and 128 CE. It is described as the most remarkable ancient building surviving in Rome. After being destroyed and rebuilt twice, it was renamed the “Temple of the Gods”. In 126 AD, the Pantheon was restored to its glory, by the architects who at that time has learned and mastered their craft in concrete construction in the Greek Classical order. They constructed a massive 25 foot thick walls which was to support the huge dome made of concrete to be placed at the top. The dome was the largest ever made of unreinforced concrete at 43.4 meters in diameter (Matthews, Roy and Platt pg. 5).
The first stelas were erected in the Upper Egyptian funerary complexes at Abydos and were large slabs of rectangular stone,...
La Venta, built between 1000 and 600 B.C., sat on an island in a swamp (Stanton 93). Later, around 500 B.C., Monte Alban, which was used as a religious center even after the Olmecs faded, was built on an immense mountain (Stanton 93). The cities were made up of temples and plazas, and decorated by monumental stone heads, which weighed up to 50 tons (Stanton 93)! These heads probably represented their early kings and had distinct helmets (Kingfisher 32). It is incredible how the Olmec people transported the stone from the distant mountains to La Venta, near the shore, without the aid of work animals or carts.
Archeologists suggest that the large stones used in building the pyramids were transported by rolling them over logs or a wet, slippery, clay surface. These methods may have been effective in moving the blocks close to the building site, but do not explain how the massive bricks, weighing as much as a Ford F250 truck, were lifted on top of each other.
Each block weighs fifty tons! They would thatch the roofs with tree trunks and straw. After the buildings were constructed, the Incan people would smooth the stones with sand, mud, and clay to make the structures look polished. The people who inhabited this ancient site considered it to be magical because of the Andes Mountains and the Amazon River. The Temple of the Condor was a place of worship where the head of the condor was used as an altar for sacrifices.
Figure 1. The stones were surrounded by air bags made of animal skin, so that they float on water (a). The wrapped stones were then transported to the foot of the pyramid where they were guided into a water pipe that was constructed onto the pyramid (with inclination 51.8 degrees) (b). As a result of the upward buoyance force, the stone carrier moves upward in the pipe until it reaches a first sluice gate. At that moment, a similar sluice gate at the foot of the pyramid is closed and the gate that was reached by the stone is opened. The sequence is repeated until the stone reaches its destination (c). The dimensions of stone with carrier bags and the water pipe are shown in (c).
The legs of the statue are described as "vast" (2), while the ruins are a
The head dated back to 900 BC, during the Olmec civilization of ancient Mesoamerica. The sculptures were dated to the Early Preclassic period (1500–1000 BC). In addition, some were found during the Middle Preclassic (1000–400 BC) period. The sculptures weigh approximately 40 to 50 tons. However, there are some that weigh 6 tons. It is unsure why the sculptures were created and placed at the location. The sculpture has left an impression of how much men power were require to move the stone. It is uncertain of the meaning which is questionable as for why. The sculpture is not aesthetically pleasing; however, many may find it stimulating, as it leaves many unanswered questions (Wikipedia, 2016).
The veil of mystery over Easter Island has been covering the island since we first stumbled upon it, the popularity of the island has grown immensely, and the mystery still encom-passes the island to this day. The History of Easter Island is one filled with prosperity and hardship, the inhabitants of the island experienced everything. The island is world re-nowned for the hundreds of giant statues called Moai, which are placed all over the island. The island is shrouded in mys-tery and due to this scientists, archaeologists, engineers, and linguists alike have hypothesized theories about the is-land. Over the years scientists have made many more intriguing discoveries about Easter Island, removing
I find it interesting how individuals such as the Ancient Egyptians managed to build these large structures through