(Sept. 7) - British scientists believe they have solved an ancient mystery surrounding the giant stone statues of Easter Island.
More than 1,000 of the statues, known as moai, have been found on the remote Pacific island, located about 2,500 miles west of Chile. About 70 or 75 of these wear striking red boulder hats, weighing several tons each. But where did they get them?
Skip over this content
Chilean Investigative Police / AP
Around 70 of the giant stone statues on Easter Island are adorned with massive red hats. British scientists believe they know where the hats were made.
Colin Richards of the University of Manchester and Sue Hamilton of University College London said they think the massive hats were carved from volcanic rock in a hidden, "sacred quarry," and then rolled down the slopes of an ancient volcano to the statues they adorn. The researchers said they have reconstructed the path the workers used from the Puna Pau quarry.
"We know the hats were rolled along the road made from a cement of compressed red scoria dust," Richards told the BBC News on Monday.
A ceremonial adze was found near the hats. The scientists believe the tool may have been an ancient offering.
"It is clear that the quarry had a sacred context as well as an industrial one," Richards told The Independent, a British newspaper. "The Polynesian saw the landscape as a living thing and after they carved the rock the spirits entered the statues."
They believe the hats began appearing between the years 1200 and 1300, around the time the islanders began creating even bigger moai in memory of their ancestors.
Now that scientists think they know where the moai got their hats, the question is: Why?
The hats' red hue symbolized high birth, the scientists said. Hamilton said the colorful headgear may represent a plait or top knot worn by clan chieftains. She said the red hats may have been added later to some statues to elevate the status of their creators' ancestors' over their neighbors'.
"Chieftain society was highly competitive and it has been suggested that they were competing so much that they overran their resources," Hamilton told The Independent.
Skip over this content
