In honor of Columbus Day and myth-busting history (we know Christopher Columbus didn’t discover anything, the Indians were already here) here’s an Easter Island mystery uncovered. All along, the giant sculptures have had torsos, buried underground! I know, right? Who knew?
Archaeologists documented 887 of the massive statues, known as moai, but there may up as many as 1,000 of them on the island. Most were carved from volcanic rock between 1100 and 1680. The Easter Island bodies were news to me, but apparently this is not a recent discovery. Live Science asserts that archaeologists have actually known about the bodies since archaeological research on the island began over a hundred years ago, in 1914. Easter Island Statue Project director Jo Anne Van Tilburg told Live Science.
“There are about 150 statues buried up to the shoulders on the slope of a volcano, and these are the most famous, most beautiful and most photographed of all the Easter Island statues. This suggested to people who had not seen photos of (other unearthed statues) that they are heads only.
It’s always important to get beneath the surface of things.”
