One day, in 10,000 years, the cyborg archeologists of the future
will scratch their abnormally large heads and wonder how we built Mount
Rushmore, the Golden Gate Bridge or the Eiffel Tower with our primitive
technology. Some of them will decide that it was aliens.
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| It's always aliens. Image credit: Jin Zan |
Moai (that’s pronounced mow-eye – I had to look it up) are the human figures carved by the Rapa
Nui people of Easter Island. There are 887 of them, about half of which
remain at the quarry.
They were carved to embody ancestors or powerful leaders,
and they may have served as status symbols. Dr.
Anneliese Pontius advanced a theory that the monoliths were carved as a
form of ritualistic treatment for leprosy, since the residents of Easter Island
couldn’t simply send their lepers to another island or call Jesus or anything.
A popular 19th-century theory, now debunked, held that Easter Island
was a remnant of a lost
continent and that many more moai were submerged under the sea.
Although many people think of the moai as just being giant
stone heads, that’s a misconception that arose because most of the photos we
see of them show them mostly buried:
In fact, these are whole statues which depict, in most
cases, an overly large head set atop a torso. Most of them do not have legs.
Construction
of the moai began around 1200 AD, when the island was heavily forested, and
continued until around 1500-1600 AD, when the last of the trees were cut,
presumably to facilitate the construction and erection of the moai. Scholars
aren’t sure if the moai were moved on sledges or “walked” by tilting them side
to side. The era of their construction seems to have ended abruptly, and the
native islanders are believed to have pushed
at least some of the moai down afterward, although an earthquake might have
been responsible for toppling some of them.
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| Image credit: Rivi |
The Grave
Creek Mound is one of the largest burial mounds in the U.S. It’s found in
Moundsville, West Virginia, across the street from the old penitentiary. I’ve
been to both and I have to say, the penitentiary is a lot more exciting. If you’re
in Moundsville and you only have time to do one thing, I recommend the
penitentiary. But I digress.
The Grave Creek Mound was built by the Adena people, who
lived in the area around 2,000 years ago. It took about 100 years to build, as
they constructed it in stages, beginning in about 250 BC and ending around 150
BC. There are multiple graves within the mound, with a different one on each
level. The mound originally came with a moat, about 40 feet (12 meters) wide
and five feet (1.5 meters) deep.
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| The moat has been replaced with a picnic area. |
No one knows why the mound was built or who the people
inside of it are, or why they were so important, but there’s a statue of an elk
in front of it for some reason.
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| I don't think the elk is original. |
The Carnac
stones, located near the French village of Carnac in Brittany, make up the
largest collection of prehistoric standing stones in the world. They were
erected between 4500 and 3300 BC. Over the centuries, the stones have been used
as livestock shelters and ovens. Many of them have been used for building
materials and others have been moved to make way for roads. Most of the stones
are lined up in rows, and there are three main groups
– the Ménec, the Kermario, and the Kerlescan – which may have once been unified,
before all the house-building, road-making and baking aforementioned. There are
also grave mounds, stone tombs, single standing stones and other formations.
Some believe the stones had some sort of astronomical
purpose, pointing to supposed connections between the alignments of the stones
and the position of the sun at solstice. Others think the stones had a funerary
purpose. French engineer Pierre Mereaux believed the stones were used to detect and
measure seismic activity. Legend holds that the stones were members of
Roman legion cursed by the wizard Merlin.
