East Island is a place surrounded by mystery. The giant Maoi statues cover the island and enthrall visitors. But archaeologists to this day try to determine how an ancient people moved these great statues.
When this idea was first brought to my attention I did not fully understand how this feat would be approached. How could humans sway a statue weighing tons. However, once I saw a picture I was able to see with my own eyes how the ropes could be attached to the statue and how people would need to pull it.
A Statue is "walking" in this picture. Without this photograph I would never have understood how this was possible.
Does a painted/drawn diagram of the same event do as good of a job at depicting this feat? Do you learn as much from this second image or is the photo better?
Source on information on Easter Island and Photograph: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=easter-island-statues-might-have-been-walked-out-of-quarry
Source for drawn image: http://www.google.com/imgres?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&tbo=d&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=fflb&tbm=isch&tbnid=Au2CPoGc3cPdjM:&imgrefurl=http://article.wn.com/view/2012/10/25/Easter_Island_statues_walked_into_position_say_experts/&docid=xEDitC1tMMI6WM&imgurl=http://i.ytimg.com/vi/J5YR0uqPAI8/0.jpg&w=480&h=360&ei=umahUOf_Neiy0QH5_YCwCg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=615&sig=107649702383616812191&page=1&tbnh=135&tbnw=175&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:13,s:0,i:116&tx=119&ty=91&biw=1280&bih=593
I feel like the picture proves that you can actually do this, while the drawing feels like it's still in the ideas phase. However, since we've been talking about how pictures can be false even if they seem to depict the truth, this feeling isn't necessarily true. But the public might think like I just did in the first sentence without even thinking about the ideas in the second sentence.
ReplyDeleteThe photo brings a nice realism to the act of what one is doing, but I feel the drawing illustrates it more allowing the imagination to fully believe the process. If these both are trying to convince the public of what happened, they may be best used in tandem. That way, the first one shows the process is actually possible (unless the photo is misleading us), whereas the illustration emphasizes the process making and allowing our minds to explore the end result.
ReplyDelete