At http://heritage-key.com/blogs/owenjarus/could-djedefres-pyramid-be-solar-temple-not-according-new-research-Baud May 11th … could Djedefre’s pyramid be a solar temple? Not according to new research. Dr Michael Baud of the Louvre Museum in Paris gave a lecture on the pyramid at Abu Roash (see also http://heritage-key.com/site/abu-roash/ ) which was quarried in Roman times for its stone. The solar orientation had been accepted until Baud’s excavations there over the last few years.
At www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-05/uom-eid051210.php archaeologists from the UK have proved the Easter Island statues, known as moai, were toppled, of their own accord or by human agency. They were not abandoned willy nilly on roads used to transport them. The roads, in fact, appear to have had a ceremonial role – and were not built to lug great slabs of rock cut into the shape of heads. These moai were quarried at the volcanic cone of Rano Raraku – entry point to the underworld (and the mythical land of Hawaiki). Or so it is thought. Basically, the volcano was sacred, and represented a ‘fire’ god of some description, and the roads themselves were concave and quite useless for transporting large intractable lumps of rock. The moai faced people walking along the ceremonial roads heading towards the volcano – the object of worship. Each moai was set up on an individual stone platform – and as the volcano is approached the moai become more plentiful. What the heads represented, from a human perspective, is unclear – but it could perhaps be gleaned from Polynesian myth on other islands.