The Benefits of a Potbelly

The Moai statues of Easter Island are giant human representations which can weigh as much as 80 tonnes.

The Moai statues of Easter Island are giant human representations which can weigh as much as 80 tonnes. The local legend about the statues is that they walked to the spots where they are today. Recently, Terry Hunt, an archaeologist at University of Hawaii, and Carl P Lipo, an anthropologist at California State University Long Beach, showed how this might have been possible. They made an experimental Moai walk using three long ropes and 18 people divided into three teams. Three ropes were tied to the statue’s head and two teams rocked it from its left and right side. The Moai have large potbellies, so the sideways rocking makes it fall forward, never backward. Behind the Moai was the third team tugging at a rope to keep the statue upright.

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Alok Singh