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Easter Island Moai: Mystery of Movement

José Tuki, a 30-year-old artist from Easter Island, is sitting on a beach looking at enormous stone statues called moai that were carved and moved long ago. The first Polynesians arrived on Easter Island hundreds of years ago by canoe, and today thousands of tourists visit each year to see the mysterious moai statues. There are debates about how the Rapa Nui people transported the massive statues, which weigh over 80 tons, from quarries over 11 miles away. While some think the statues were drug along the ground, others propose they were moved with ropes and many people. An experiment was recently conducted to test the rope hypothesis, but José Tuki notes the

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300 views3 pages

Easter Island Moai: Mystery of Movement

José Tuki, a 30-year-old artist from Easter Island, is sitting on a beach looking at enormous stone statues called moai that were carved and moved long ago. The first Polynesians arrived on Easter Island hundreds of years ago by canoe, and today thousands of tourists visit each year to see the mysterious moai statues. There are debates about how the Rapa Nui people transported the massive statues, which weigh over 80 tons, from quarries over 11 miles away. While some think the statues were drug along the ground, others propose they were moved with ropes and many people. An experiment was recently conducted to test the rope hypothesis, but José Tuki notes the

Uploaded by

Khalief Hidayat
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Reading Exercise February Week 2 2022

Read the text then do the exercise

A mystery in the South Pacific Ocean


José Tuki is a 30-year-old artist from Easter Island in the South Pacific Ocean. He’s sitting on
Anakena beach and he’s looking at enormous statues of people —the moai. The statues are
from four feet tall to 33 feet tall. Some of them weigh more than 80 tons. They are hundreds of
years old. The moai are made of a type of stone that doesn’t exist on Anakena beach. People
made the statues in a different place and then they moved them 11 miles to the beach. ‘How did
they do it?’ Tuki asks.
The first Polynesians arrived at Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by canoe hundreds of years ago. This
small island is 2,150 miles west of South America. These days, 12 flights arrive every week from
Chile, Peru, and Tahiti. In 2011, 50,000 tourists flew to Easter Island. All the tourists go to see
the moai.
There are different ideas about how the Rapa Nui people moved the moai. Some historians think
the ancestors used ropes and wood and pulled the statues along the ground. The scientist and
writer Jared Diamond thinks that many people moved the statues. He also thinks that the people
cut down the trees on the island. They needed the wood to move the statues. They also needed
a lot of space without trees to grow food. Because they cut down the trees, there was an
environmental disaster on the island.
But archaeologists Terry Hunt of the University of Hawaii and Carl Lipo of California State
University Long Beach don’t agree with Jared Diamond. They say that it was possible to move
the statues with a small number people and a system of ropes. Last year National Geographic
Expeditions Council paid for an experiment to test Hunt and Lipo’s idea.
Easter Islander José Tuki says, ‘I want to know the truth, but maybe the island doesn’t tell all its
answers.’ He thinks that the moai are very special and powerful and maybe it’s not a good idea
to know the truth

adapted from https://www.ngllife.com/easter-island-statues

Exercise 1
Choose ten sentences from the text then copy on the table below, then highlight the verb tense!
Sentences Verb
Example: sit, look
He’s sitting on Anakena beach and he’s
looking at enormous statues of people —the
moai.

1)

2)

3)

4)

5)

6)

7)

8)

9)

10)

Exercise 2

Make sentences from the verb you have chose on the list above.

Verb Sentences
Example: sit, look The girl is looking at the sky full of stars.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.
8.

. 9.

10.

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