Aside from the Bird Man, there were a whole lot more stunning discoveries made on the mysterious island. Underneath one of the nearly thousand massive statues, a team led by Van Tilburg uncovered an especially intriguing relic. The statue featured a crescent symbol engraved on its surface. Based on the findings, researchers theorized that the carvings depicted a canoe or “vaka” in Rapa Nui.
In addition, the statues that secretly stored the special kind of stone possessed petroglyph writings on their sides. Van Tilburg’s team concluded that the ancient carvings, along with the petroglyphs had a significant link to the people who once built the statues on the island.
The “Cannibal Cave"
The images were captured from the “Cannibal Cave,” portraying what is popularly called the Tangata Manu or “Bird Man” in literal English translation. The Bird Man signified the winner of a sacred tournament that was held on the island every year. The original settlers of Easter Island would compete with everyone else in finding the first egg of the season.
This would normally entail swimming to a nearby island, securing an egg, and then swimming back again to Rapa Nui with the egg. The first one to complete the ritual would automatically be welcomed as the Bird Man and the tribal chief of the community for the entire year.
How Did They Do it?
Ever since the Easter Island Heads were discovered back in the 1700s, no one was able to explain precisely how the Moai could have been built and scattered across the island by ancient people. Many theories have been formulated through the years and each one shared its own unique perspective as to how such a grand endeavor could have been achieved given the various engineering limitations of that particular time.
A popular theory proposed that the massive stone figures would most possibly entail plenty of able hands, ropes, and potentially other tools as well. There are also other theories that propose that its mysterious builders likely have utilized logs to roll the Moai to their designated placements. If this is correct, then it would mean that the ancient builders of the Moai would have required at least 50 to 100 people to transport the massive structures everywhere on the island amidst countless physical obstacles.
Like Moving Mountains
To simulate the manner in which the ancient builders of the Moai would have carried the giant structures everywhere across the Easter Island, an engineer from the Czech Republic, Pavel Pavel, teamed up with an adventurer from Norway, Thor Heyerdahl, and built their own accurate replica of the Moai statue. The two used a single rope, secured it tightly around the head, and then used another one following the same approach on the base of the statue.
Together with 16 other people, they were able to move the statue albeit at a snail-like pace. But since their pulling created some minor damage to the statue, they opted to conclude the activity in advance. After the event, both made the prediction that it was possible for their team to move the giant statue 330 feet per day. If we did the math, then it would require nearly twenty people 160 days to move one statue for a distance of just one mile!
Resistance
While various contradicting theories exist involving the strange disappearance of the early Easter Islanders, the majority of anthropologists have similar views when it comes to one specific fact. At one particular time during the 18th century, the early inhabitants of the Easter Island began massive riots, in resistance against their tribal leaders.
When resources started to dwindle, tensions between various groups grew and eventually explode into violent clashes and actual battles. Because of the large-scale unrest that happened during that time, a lot of the Moai statues were destroyed and taken down. As it appears, the majority of the statues were left lying beneath the earth. Obviously, each one of them has been re-elected ever since.