The question of how the ancient Rapa Nui civilization transported their massive stone statues has baffled experts for generations — until now.
The world is filled with ancient enigmas, but scientists believe they’ve finally cracked one that has long captivated historians and archaeologists alike — the mystery behind Easter Island’s iconic stone figures.
Scroll through YouTube for even a few minutes, and you’ll find endless theories on humanity’s greatest unsolved puzzles — from how the pyramids were built to the secrets of Stonehenge. Yet, one mystery that hasn’t received as much attention is how the enormous statues of Easter Island, located off the coast of Chile, were moved into position hundreds of years ago.
For those unfamiliar, the island is home to the Moai — towering stone statues weighing between 12 and 14 tons each. At first glance, they appear to be just heads rising from the ground, but in reality, most of their bodies are buried beneath the surface.
For decades, researchers have struggled to understand how the Rapa Nui people managed to transport such colossal monuments across the island without the help of modern tools or machinery.
Now, new evidence suggests that ancient ingenuity, not brute strength, made it possible.
Experts already knew that the Rapa Nui civilization, based in eastern Polynesia, carved and raised the statues sometime between 1250 and 1500 CE. What remained uncertain was how they managed to move such massive stone figures across the island’s rough terrain with limited resources.
According to researchers, “The walking of the statues looks pretty impressive and makes sense.”
That mystery may finally be solved. Modern scientists haven’t just proposed a theory — they’ve demonstrated how it could have worked.
Carl Lipo, Professor of Anthropology at Binghamton University, and Terry Hunt of the University of Arizona have spent years studying both the statues and the island’s ancient roads. Their findings suggest that the Rapa Nui people used ropes to “walk” the Moai upright, rocking them side to side along carefully prepared paths.
Lipo explained: “Once you get it moving, it isn’t hard at all – people are pulling with one arm. It conserves energy, and it moves really quickly.”
“The hard part is getting it rocking in the first place. The question is, if it’s really large, what would it take? Are the things that we saw experimentally consistent with what we would expect from a physics perspective?”
When demonstrated, the process appears remarkably elegant — the statue gently sways from left to right as it gradually advances forward. Watching this motion, it becomes easy to picture how ancient builders could have guided these monumental figures across the island centuries ago.
To put their theory to the test, the researchers constructed a 4.35-ton replica of a Moai. With only 18 people, they managed to “walk” it 100 meters in just 40 minutes — proving that the technique was both realistic and efficient.
Lipo added: “The physics makes sense. What we saw experimentally actually works. And as it gets bigger, it still works. All the attributes that we see about moving gigantic ones only get more and more consistent the bigger and bigger they get, because it becomes the only way you could move it.”
He also noted that the island’s network of ancient roads supports this theory, suggesting that the statues were moved in stages rather than dragged continuously.
“We actually see them overlapping each other, and many parallel versions of them. What they are probably doing is clearing a path, moving it, clearing another, clearing it further, and moving it right in certain sequences. So they’re spending a lot of time on the road part.”
The researchers are so confident in their findings that Lipo has invited others to challenge them — if they can.
“Find some evidence that shows it couldn’t be walking,” he said. “Because nothing we’ve seen anywhere disproves that.”
