Moai

Aku-Aku Eclipse

Easter Island

July 11th, 2010

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Ahu Vinapu

Eclipse 2010 gallery image S169.jpg

2010-07-12 15:30 UTC Click images for enlargements.

Ahu Vinapu is a site not far from the end of the airport runway with toppled moai and a wall whose mortarless stonework convinced Thor Heyerdahl that Easter Island was settled from South America, not west to east from Polynesia. Few anthropologists give credence to his theories, and although there are superficial resemblances between this site and Inca stonework, the details are very different.

Eclipse 2010 gallery image S170.jpg

2010-07-12 15:32 UTC

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2010-07-12 15:35 UTC

Toppled moai and topknots.

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2010-07-12 15:41 UTC

This is the stonework that so enthralled Heyerdahl.

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2010-07-12 15:44 UTC

But looking at it from the side, it's evident that the finely fitted stones are a facade for a platform filled with rubble, something the Incas didn't do.

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2010-07-12 15:47 UTC

Eclipse 2010 gallery image S175.jpg

2010-07-12 15:50 UTC


by John Walker
July 20th, 2010
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This document is in the public domain.