Moai statue in Strakonice, experiment, transfer

JANUARY 1983 - To this day, researchers have not been able to give a satisfactory answer to the method of transporting the stone statues called moai, sometimes several kilometres long, on Easter Island. They range in size from three to twenty-one metres and in weight from 10 to 130 tonnes. Thor Heyerdahl's most successful attempt to date involved 150 people to move a ten-tonne statue. The young engineer Pavel Pavel from Strakonice was fascinated by the mystery. After a year of studying the accounts of the natives, calculations and many experiments, he decided to test his idea. With the help of unionists from the Agricultural Construction Administration and the Secondary School of Mechanical Engineering, he made a statue 4.5 m high and 10 tons heavy. Using the statue's own torque, tilting and shifting it by pulling the rope, ten times fewer people than in Heyerdahl's experiment were able to move the statue twenty centimetres in front of television cameras, cameras and dozens of curious onlookers. Whether the first steps of the Strakonice moai will help to solve one of the mysteries of ancient civilisations will be judged by experts. (CTK Photo/Jaroslav Sybek)

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