One of the Easter Island Moai statues that was car...

It would have stood 72ft tall (the tallest standing is only 33ft high).

Carved in the Rano Raraku quarry (Chile), the vast majority of these statues were formed from a type of soft stone composed of volcanic ash.

Working in teams of 5-6 craftsmen, it is believed that each carving took an average of one year to complete. Using handheld basalt stone chisels, this job would have been painstaking.

As difficult as it may have been to create these figures, transporting them may have been the real challenge. Like many pieces of history, the details of this feat have been debated.

The most commonly accepted theories involve some combination of wood, rope, and some form of manpower. Some hypothesize that the system was made from wooden sleds and rope, while others have suggested that logs may have been cut down and used as makeshift rollers, allowing each piece to glide across the island.

A recent study suggests that these massive statues may have not been pulled across the island at all, rather, they “walked” themselves there.

While that may sound a bit like something out of Lord of the Rings, this theory isn’t mythical, but rather as researchers suggest, each Moai was “walked” to its destination using a series of ropes anchored to each side of the statue. Workers would then slowly use the ropes in such a way that allowed the figure to tilt from side to side at a slightly forward leaning angle, causing an illusion that the Moai was “walking” across the island.

Of the Moai that were erected, the tallest measures 33 feet in height, while the heaviest is thought to weigh approximately 84.6 tons.

Aptly named El Gigante, the largest recorded Moai would have stood at 72 feet tall, with a weight between 160 and 180 tons, heavier than that of two Boeing 737s. It was instead left embedded in the Rano Raraku quarry.

The reason for this remains a mystery.