Thursday, December 10, 2009

Easter Island Red Hat Mystery Revealed


The questioning of how these statues received their mysterious red hats has been solved. These giant statues are found on Easter Island and British archaeologists believe that it all started with the discovery of a road on the tiny Pacific island. University of Manchester and University College, London provided a team that found a hidden quarry, known as Puna Pau, where the hats were built. The quarry was located in an ancient crater of a volcano and they analyze that the hats were rolled to the statues either by hand or using tree logs. Polynesians moved the hats between 500 and 750 years ago to where the statues are located. The hate were made of a red scoria, similar to pumice-like volcanic rock and weighed several tons. They were places on the heads of the moai, another name for the human like figures, which encircle the island’s coastline. The question that remains is how they were raised on top of the figures. Keep in mind the hats weigh several pounds, how could that be possible?

http://news.discovery.com/archaeology/easter-island-red-hats.html


Tamara Eckert

Period 7

2 comments:

Brian said...

Wow that was really interesting. I like the picture. I've always wondered about the Easter Heads ever since I heard about them

Brian said...

Wow that was interesting. I've always wanted to know about the Easter Island Heads.