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Those Easter Island Statues Aren't Just Heads, They Have Bodies That are Buried Underground

Someone owes someone an apology

By Rain Noe - July 22, 2015

Of all the ridiculous arguments you'll overhear on the NYC subway, most are not worth your time to listen in on; it's obvious that St. Mark's Place is not within "the Lower East Side" and everyone knows that Kanye West does not have a degree in architecture. But this one was too good for me not to surreptitiously lean towards: A woman insisting that those giant head statues on Easter Island actually have bodies below the earth's surface, and her male companion dismissing this as a myth.

Not being up on my Easter Island news, when I got home I had to look it up. Turns out the woman was right, and those heads have torsos that have been buried in volcanic ash.

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As early as 1914, archaeologists have known that the heads were only the exposed parts of the sculptures poking up above the dirt, according to Live Science. They quote archaeologist Dr. Jo Anne Van Tilburg, a rock sculpture expert and director of the Easter Island Statue Project:

The reason people think they are [only] heads is 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 on the island] that they are heads only.

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Why this was considered a myth is not surprising, and is probably due to the following idiotic rendering that someone posted online:

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The Easter Island statues do not, in fact, have "gym bodies"--what did they, have memberships to Equinox? In keeping with the way that the actual Rapa Nui tribespeople who carved them look like, they're decidedly a bit less P-90X:

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If you were the naysayer riding the 6-train around 5:30pm on Friday, I hope that you Googled it when you got home, and later apologized to your friend.

o

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Those Easter Island Statues Aren't Just Heads, They Have Bodies That are Buried Underground

Donald Jones

2 years ago

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Sneaky hobbitses.

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Ken K

2 years ago

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Actually, the term "Lower East Side" changed just a few decades ago. For my parents' generation, it included everything between 14th Street and Houston, as well as what is now/still included. It is only fairly recently (in city terms) that the north section of the Lower East Side between 14th St and Houston even started to call itself the "East Village." So if you are old-school, St. Marks Place *is* in the Lower East Side. I know folks in their 30s and 40s who still call it the Lower East Side.

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David Appleman

2 years ago

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The depiction of the moai in the movie "Night at the Museum" as only a head probably shares some of the blame.

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Rain Noe

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.