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Easter Island heads have bodies

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11–20 of 92 posts

Re: Easter Island heads have bodies

#13

This is one of the most amazing discoveries I have seen recently. The sheer weight of that stone is absolutely insane. I'm still a little stunned this was just discovered. I would love to know what the people who made this were thinking. To create a work of art that detailed and massive just to bury 75% of it seems very odd. I'm sure there was a good reason to do it (in their minds at least), I'd love to know what th…

Just to ameliorate possible confusion, we've known about the bodies since at least the 90's, though possibly earlier. True, that's relatively recent given how old they are, but it's not desirable for readers to come away having concluded that we've just discovered them, like, yesterday.

Re: Easter Island heads have bodies

#15
post #11

This still a tech news aggregator? This is something that should be on reddit, not hacker news...?

Read the FAQ and tell me how a story about art/discovery/paradigm-shifting is OT...

tl;dr hn is not a technews aggregator.

Re: Easter Island heads have bodies

#17

That is phenomenal. Raises the question: did whoever built them bury them, or were they buried by natural forces?

It's been ages since I read it, but I think that Jared Diamond's book 'Collapse' explains a bit about the island and the statues construction (his main focus is on the self-destructive cycles of behavior of the population however).

Also, I thought this was old news? I'm sure I have seen that photo quite a while ago.

Re: Easter Island heads have bodies

#18
post #15
post #11

This still a tech news aggregator? This is something that should be on reddit, not hacker news...?

Read the FAQ and tell me how a story about art/discovery/paradigm-shifting is OT... tl;dr hn is not a technews aggregator.

http://www.eisp.org/ has way more information on the topic than the linked blog. I don't think it's off topic, I just think it's a poor article which has no real substance (hence the reddit comparison).

Eh. I guess I'll just stick to HN classic.

Re: Easter Island heads have bodies

#19

This blew my mind. I don't know why, I find it incredibly eye-opening that the first thought that one might think of on seeing a head in the dirt (that there's the rest of it underneath) has just simply never occurred to generations of people because we were "told" by someone that they're just heads. How powerful words can be in casting an illusion, in defeating creativity, and hiding the truth!

Without knowing about the subject, I am curious to know, do you seriously think that [it] "has just simply never occurred to generations of people"...? A lack of physical investigation is not enough to conclude such a thing.

Re: Easter Island heads have bodies

#20

This is one of the most amazing discoveries I have seen recently. The sheer weight of that stone is absolutely insane. I'm still a little stunned this was just discovered. I would love to know what the people who made this were thinking. To create a work of art that detailed and massive just to bury 75% of it seems very odd. I'm sure there was a good reason to do it (in their minds at least), I'd love to know what th…

Making stuff and burying it is very common in archeology according to my (limited) knowledge. Chucking stuff as offerings into springs, holes etc as offerings. Burin it with dead people (anyone under that stone is now 2 dimensional). But I do agree that this seems odd - half burying...

Allows you to prop it up
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