In Thor Heyerdahl’s Aku-Aku, the renowned explorer takes his family and a group of other inquisitive sorts to Rapa Nui (a.k.a. Easter Island). He convinced the Mayor of Rapa Nui to demonstrate how the Moai were raised, and over the course of eighteen days, a team of people did just that. Hanford Lemoore has posted a series of photos and captions from the book that demonstrate how it was done, using long wooden poles for leverage, and inserting ever larger rocks as shims to raise the statue very slowly, until it’s totally upright.

• Easter Islanders raising a Moai into place (from Aku-Aku) [Tiki Central]