How the Moai Statues Moved: Easter Island, 1200 AD

In 1200 AD on Easter Island, the Rapa Nui carved Moai statues up to 33 feet tall and left them dotted miles from the quarry at Rano Raraku. Some of these giants weighed over 80 tons yet ended up perched on stone platforms all across the island’s roughest terrain. The riddle of how the Rapa Nui moved the Moai haunted explorers ever since Dutch sailors first recorded them in 1722. But local oral histories described the statues ‘walking’ on their own, a claim dismissed for centuries. In 2012, researchers recreated the technique: teams rocking the Moai forward with ropes, step by step, making the statues sway like lumbering walkers toward their final resting places.