Chris Higgins
The Easter Island “Heads” Have Bodies
by Chris Higgins - November 8, 2011 - 12:37 PM

Easter Island Moai

Maybe this isn’t a newsflash to anyone but me, but, um, the Moai “heads” on Easter Island have bodies. Because some of the statues are set deep into the ground, and because the heads on the statues are disproportionately large, many people (myself included) tend to think of them as just big heads. But the bodies (generally not including legs, though there is at least one kneeling statue) are there — in many cases, underground. What’s even more interesting — there are petroglyphs (rock markings) that have been preserved below the soil level, where they have been protected from erosion. This research report has been making the rounds; it discusses recent progress by The Easter Island Statue Project to uncover, study, and catalogue two statues. It includes (among the dry details of the research) a day-by-day journal of the work, as well as remarkable photographs showing the petroglyphs and team members excavating. Above is an image from a previous excavation (source unknown) that shows you the scale of the statues, and how deep they were buried. (Note: visitors are prohibited from climbing on the Moai; the expedition pictured above appears to predate the EISP and the current practice of conservation.)

For more on the Easter Island statues, read more about the EISP, read their extensive research reports, and check out the Wikipedia page on Moai (which also discusses the fairly well-known fact that many of the statues used to have hats or possibly topknots, known as pukao). Also interesting is the back story of archaeology on Easter Island (also known as Rapa Nui); apparently the island has been the subject of archaeological research for 119 years.

Update: thanks to some footwork by reader algomeysa, we’ve determined that this photo is from Thor Heyerdahl’s book Easter Island: The Mystery Solved.

(Via Jason Scott.)

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Comments (47)

  1. Wow! I had no idea they had bodies! :D

    posted by Bethany on 11-8-2011 at 12:53 pm

  2. Which just adds to the mystery of the island….not only are we still trying to figure out who carved the Moai and for what purpose, but now we can add questions such as why would they bury them to almost half their total height?

    -”BB”-

    posted by Bicycle Bill on 11-8-2011 at 1:05 pm

  3. You can tell how old the picture is by the dude in the blue safari suit…!

    posted by Gary on 11-8-2011 at 1:15 pm

  4. We went there in the early 70′s and at that time they knew that some had bodies buried. They had also figured out that the majority of them were
    looking out to the ocean. The theories were protection or graves waiting for the gods. Either way, it didn’t work. Also, the earlobes were all stretched, a sign of the upper classes. The thinking at time was the lower classes rose up in a civil war and stopped making the statues all of a sudden. You could see them in the stages of develeopment at the volcano, being dragged and installed.

    posted by DaveP on 11-8-2011 at 1:47 pm

  5. You’re not alone — this is news to me too!!

    posted by Stephanie on 11-8-2011 at 1:55 pm

  6. This is news to me! Just when you think you know everything about something, something comes out of left field.

    posted by indotexan on 11-8-2011 at 2:30 pm

  7. Thor Heyerdahl the guy who did the Kon Tiki raft back in the 50′s led a expedition to Easter Island and wrote about it in a book Called Aku-Aku.

    posted by Scott on 11-8-2011 at 3:41 pm

  8. The most likely theory is that they were carved as “tombstones” of sorts, a memorial to the person. And of course, the next man’s idol must be bigger. They also wore hats and had bright white eyes with pupils adhered to them. And if I remember correctly, that still non-ciphered language is called Rongo-Dongo. Sadly, it was the construction of these statues that did in the civilization. In order to roll them into place they needed logs, and in doing so, they completely decimated every tree on the island. No trees, no wood, no fire, no shelter, havoc, and then no more people. It’s sad really. Watch the movie 180 degrees South for a better animation of this.

    posted by I am the Birdman on 11-8-2011 at 4:23 pm

  9. Also, I speculate that the buried part was due to how they were stood up. Most likely a pit was dug and they were rolled towards it until gravity dropped one end into the pit. Then they’d fill in around them and it also gave them greater stability. The egyptians raised some of their monoliths in the same fashion. A simple A-frame, logs, and rope was all they needed.

    posted by I am the Birdman on 11-8-2011 at 4:29 pm

  10. This was news to me, too! How great to have something new to learn and read about. Thanks, Chris and Mental Floss!

    posted by Rachel on 11-8-2011 at 5:47 pm

  11. They were erected on the surface, erosion (soil movement form area to another) and wind action covered amny of the Moai.

    posted by Joe in Florida on 11-8-2011 at 6:01 pm

  12. They not only have bodies, but also nice tan lines!

    posted by David on 11-8-2011 at 6:25 pm

  13. Here’s a bizarre/interesting video demonstrating how the Moai might be made to “walk”:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcXt7KYJoCk

    Doesn’t strike me as practical on a large scale, but…dude.

    posted by Chris Higgins on 11-8-2011 at 7:33 pm

  14. hmmm.Buried..or maybe they’ve just been their a really long time. Why carve intricate features and bury them?

    posted by DaveS on 11-8-2011 at 9:02 pm

  15. Well, color me surprised!

    posted by Helenann on 11-8-2011 at 10:57 pm

  16. I apologize, I have to disagree. Look at how the bottom of these are shaped. They are as plain as could be, they look like they are meant to be in the ground. The petroglyphs could assumedly be some one’s name; buried to symbolize their position in their underworld. Most cultures that are smart enough to concoct a higher power, are smart enough to conceive, that therefore, there must be a lower power, (as ludicrous as the ideas are in the first place).

    But I do agree that of course some of it is Earth growth, after that many years the ground can morph dramatically. But they all appear relatively the same amount “exposed” pattern-wise. That would suggest the pit technique and the simple level maneuver, it’s the easiest way to do it. If you’re going to take that much time to carve it, I would bet you’re thinking of how to stand it while you’re doing so. Teeter-totter makes the most sense.

    My question to somebody, please, is. Why did the Pagans/Druids/Celts/whoever built Stonehenge, use the particular stones they did? The bluestone that Stonehenge was constructed with, was quarried nearly 100 miles away to the NorthEast, they’ve proven this. Why did they do that? Other rock was available everywhere nearby. The whole stinking island is a rock under a little dirt. Why those ones?

    posted by I am the Birdman on 11-9-2011 at 12:14 am

  17. * sorry, I meant Northwest

    posted by I am the Birdman on 11-9-2011 at 12:16 am

  18. Now I know where the bodies are buried…

    posted by Wayne Stevens on 11-9-2011 at 9:56 am

  19. The idea that civilization which constructed these statues was “done in” by the over-harvest of logs is a very old theory that is under quite a bit of scrutiny. The most recent compelling theory is that the island was severely deforested by an invasive species of rats brought in Polynesian ships (similar to what occured in other Pacific islands like Hawaii), and that the Rapanui were actually very adept at conservation of scarce resources. The Easter Islands statues seem impossibly large, but they could be carried by a group of about 20 adults – no logs necessary (and the idea that they would have to continually deforest logs to make rollers is sort of silly – logs can be dried out and reused for many many years).

    posted by Sarah TX on 11-9-2011 at 11:02 am

  20. I had NO idea that they had bodies… I am honestly shocked! Why isn’t this talked about?

    Now my curiosity is peaked… I am off to google more :)

    posted by Kelly on 11-9-2011 at 11:06 am

  21. They looks like memorials to the deceased.

    posted by KS on 11-9-2011 at 11:21 am

  22. This is news to me.

    posted by Sara in AL on 11-9-2011 at 11:36 am

  23. They are based on Dr. Who. River Song says so.

    posted by JohnC on 11-9-2011 at 11:37 am

  24. The aliens carved them, and dropped them from great heights from their spaceships, and when they landed, they stuck in the ground like throwing a knife. (tongue in cheek, sort of)

    posted by artemis133 on 11-9-2011 at 12:06 pm

  25. Birdman – Actually, the area around Stonehenge (Salisbury Plain) is all chalk, so there weren’t large rocks in the vicinity. Some of the smaller stones are thought to have come from about 30 km away – so not quite so bad!

    posted by Shannon on 11-9-2011 at 12:41 pm

  26. so how tall are they?

    posted by Tapestry on 11-9-2011 at 1:59 pm

  27. “I apologize, I have to disagree. Look at how the bottom of these are shaped. They are as plain as could be, they look like they are meant to be in the ground. The petroglyphs could assumedly be some one’s name; buried to symbolize their position in their underworld. Most cultures that are smart enough to concoct a higher power, are smart enough to conceive, that therefore, there must be a lower power, (as ludicrous as the ideas are in the first place).” the birdman

    look closer, you can see hands engraved in the statue. And while the chest and stomach area look plain it could just be that the mud is caked on heavily. But look at the hands…what are they framing? To be hidden or not it is in fact detailed and I want to see more.

    posted by S___n on 11-9-2011 at 1:59 pm

  28. The statues and their purpose is actually well known. Google Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse.”

    posted by Scott on 11-9-2011 at 4:30 pm

  29. The “Cadillac Ranch” cars are similarly arranged (the underground parts were smashed up). You have to have a lot underground or the thing falls over.

    posted by Mark Morey on 11-10-2011 at 8:50 am

  30. *Snark*

    From an archeological standpoint, the matching blue outfit of the person at ground level dates to the 1970′s. Circa 1976.

    Seventies fashions. An oxymoron if I ever heard one.

    posted by Glen Lewis on 11-10-2011 at 11:02 am

  31. The guy in “the blue safari suit” IS Thor Heyerdahl. This photo is from his book, “Aku Aku.”

    posted by Dave Schwartz on 11-10-2011 at 11:12 am

  32. I just returned from Easter Island. This isn’t the whole body. You can see his hands in front just under his belly. This statue isn’t complete… it was on it’s way to the town and was likely stopped when the war broke out on the island. That is 400 years of run off dirt surrounding the statue.

    posted by skd on 11-10-2011 at 1:30 pm

  33. I knew that!

    When I was about 7 or 8 we got an art project in the form of a school competition to make papier mashe heads. Everyone else in the class got a round balloon but mine was a long thin one. I started to cover the thing in strips of newspaper and left it that day looking like a huge sausage. When I came home from school there was an item on the news about Easter Island and I saw the heads. A quick trip to the library found me a book about them and with a piece of board for the base my head was turned into a model of an Easter Island head. I won the competition and after I was given the prize I overheard one of the teachers asking another about the heads and what Easter Island was. The second teacher replied “You better ask him (me) he seems to know everything about them”. I could not get through the doorways that day I was so swelled up with pride.

    posted by Reddog on 11-14-2011 at 12:53 pm

  34. “Rapa Nui”.

    posted by PT on 11-14-2011 at 3:55 pm

  35. The bluestone boulders of Stonehenge may have been scattered around the vicinity, thanks to glacial transport, not all at their source 100 km away. When the builders of Stonehenge sought out and moved their preferred rocks, they would have “depopulated” the area, making it look like the bluestones must have come from far away. Never rule out human causes if humans were involved.

    posted by Andrew on 11-14-2011 at 11:55 pm

  36. holy geeze! I had no idea! To WIKIPEDIA!!! =D

    posted by julgutierrez on 11-22-2011 at 2:28 am

  37. Winners of Ancient Alien Surfing Championships !

    posted by Goldenmic on 12-2-2011 at 10:20 am

  38. When I was a kid I had a plastic punching toy like a weeble that was bottom weighted with a little sand or gravel; you could smack it real hard and it would always come back to an upright position. Also have you ever seen the rock balancing guys on the street…? Rocks of the most unlikely proportions are stacked on top of each other and don’t fall down. Note how these statues are beveled wider toward the bottom; perhaps a small pit would be necessary, but mostly the wider base and narrower top would make them stable. The force of gravity would hold them in position, and with the sandy soil they would sink over time, along with wind blown sand in from the shore, and as another poster has stated run off. 400 years… Not sure about that time line, but I’m neither a geologist or a physicist so maybe I should just shut my hole. Pun intendended. I guess they’ve been carbon dated…? Rather than tomb stones, how about a simple warming to any would be invaders of their tiny island home… really big people live here, keep out!! ? My take on it; maybe?

    posted by Tbub on 12-13-2011 at 12:31 pm

  39. Call me crazy, but I’m pretty confident that statue is framing it’s genitalia. Makes perfect sense, we humans have always been pretty one-track minded

    posted by Patrick on 12-25-2011 at 1:36 am

  40. Just to clarify, the above picture is from the 1989 book EASTER ISLAND: MYSTERY SOLVED by Thor Heyerdahl.

    http://www.amazon.com/Easter-Island-Mystery-Thor-Heyerdahl/dp/0285631136/

    I checked it out at my local library to verify.

    posted by algomeysa on 12-30-2011 at 8:21 am

  41. @algomeysa – Thanks for looking it up! I looked through my copy of Aku-Aku and didn’t find this photo in there, though it seemed similar in style.

    posted by Chris Higgins on 12-30-2011 at 12:57 pm

  42. Actually, I’v been there and this is a little misleading. A couple of them have bodies like this, almost all of them don’t and were laying down (fallen or pushed over) when folks first arrived, since then many were put back upright. Still cool – and lots of mysteries/theories about how they got them out of the ground and moved and why they stopped building them. Great place.

    posted by Jim Anderson on 12-30-2011 at 4:37 pm

  43. First things first we need to check the Archy reprot and stratigraphic soil profile to see if it was back filled or…covered over time….and possibly calculate the erosion times of the hiroglyphics on the body and markings on the exposed area to compare…..i think they are older, not a result of deforestation and rolling logs…..and then we need to excavate more statues including the Olmec headz in mesoamerica

    posted by billy on 1-15-2012 at 9:04 pm

  44. People ask why they would have such intranet markings if they where purposefully buried but if we’re going with the tomb stone theory then I ask you, have you seen some of the coffins people are buried in today? See? We still do it! So nether theory is out of the question when you look at it that way.

    posted by Amelia on 1-17-2012 at 3:22 am

  45. I think the statues faced the sea to scare invaders.

    posted by Herman King on 1-17-2012 at 7:07 pm

  46. Um…so ppl have known about these heads for how long? and they’re just now discovering the bodies? I understand not wanting to disturb native religious spots but, hello, why didn’t they xray or whatever ray them long ago? I have some books on the easter island heads that don’t even mention anything about bodies….

    is this another roswell?

    posted by crusty on 1-18-2012 at 12:09 am

  47. Mary had a little lamb,
    A lamb with stone head.
    From reading comments on this page,
    the lamb has wept with dread.

    posted by Mary on 1-21-2012 at 9:33 pm

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