Normal-Sized People Can Move Big Rocks: A Quick Note on the Megalithic Traditions of Nias, Indonesia

3/28/2015

This is a quick post to bookmark some information about the megalithic traditions of Nias, Indonesia. Unlike the megalithic traditions of Sumba (Indonesia) and the Naga people (India), the behavior of moving big stones appears to be no longer "living" on Nias. The 2007 publication Megalithic Traditions in Nias Island states that the tradition of moving large stones was alive on Nias until the 1950s (page 10).

The excellent photo above (source), taken around 1915, shows a large stone being moved in the village of Bawomataluo. Searching on "Bawomataluo" turned up the photo below (source), which shows a large stone on a sled in the right portion of the photo.

Based on a Google translation of the caption, this appeared to be a photograph of a celebration related to moving a stone in honor (?) of a person named Saonigeho. Searching on that name turned up the two great photos of stone-pulling below (from the website http://www.geheugenvannederland.nl). Here is the source for the first photo, here is the source for the second.

Based on the size of the rock, its shape, and the details of how the stone is attached to the sled, I'm pretty sure all of these photos are showing the same stone. More work will show whether or not that's correct.

Looking carefully I found another photo that appears to also show the same stone on the sled (source):

Addendum (3/28/2015): I found out a little bit more about the stone, the town, and the original ethnography that I presume the photos are from (see this post).

Ros Ó Maoldúin link

5/3/2016 12:29:45 am

Hi Andy,
Great photos. We are currently excavating Neolithic megaliths in the west of Ireland and have been trying to visualise how some of the capstones were moved. These provide some interesting possibilities!
Best wishes
Ros

Andy Whit

5/7/2016 03:32:14 am

Hi Ros,

Thanks for the comment. Check out the Sumba funeral videos in this post if you haven't already. They use some big poles to lever the capstone to put a body in a megalithic tomb.

http://www.andywhiteanthropology.com/blog/normal-sized-people-can-move-big-rocks-the-example-of-sumba

ScaryDAve

5/4/2016 11:21:46 pm

Not sure if it would be interesting to you but you might look up Walley Wallington. There are a few videos of him moving very large stones with simple tools like levers, sand, rope, boards and pebbles. All by himself.

Nothing hokey at all. Just great examples of how to move huge things. I have used some of his tricks on construction sites.

He shows how relatively easy it would be to build things like Easter island and Egyptian Pyramids.

Andy White

5/7/2016 03:35:32 am

The Wallington stuff is great. I use clips in my classes sometimes, and have it listed on this page about megalithic construction:

http://www.andytheargumentativearchaeologist.com/megalithic-construction.html

Steve

12/8/2017 03:13:11 pm

Big difference between a 5 ton stone and a 60 to a 1000 ton stone. Experiments have been done t move a 5 tone stone with little success. They can move it on rollers for a short distance then start to encounter issues, ie, uneven ground, hills, valleys, water and the log rollers breaking. What i would like these brain boxes to answer is, how can you take a 500 ton block 200 miles and erect it at hight perfectly onto another huge slab before we was living in caves and mud huts???? Please please give me a good reasonable explanation for this.

Hanslune

12/8/2017 03:44:14 pm

Howdy Steve. What stone was 500 tons and moved 200 miles? Do you mean the 700 ton Memmon stones, they were moved 400+ miles? The largest stone moved by man before we had machines was the 'Thunderstone' at 1250 tons and it was moved 6 kilometers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_monoliths#Moved_monoliths

You can see from this list only a small number of such stones were moved - probably because it was really difficult and they found that cutting them up and then moving them was a better idea.

wakeUp

5/5/2016 08:56:24 am

Its not a problem to move large objects, but if u guys are refering to pyramids in Egypt, and pointing out that it was possible (for any dynast of old egyptians) to construct it on a way shown on pictures (especialy with its allignment to true north + ....... then u guyz are nuts haha....

Andy White

5/7/2016 04:23:24 am

I know, right? Humans can move one stone, sure, but lots of stones? No way!

Nick Kropacek

2/10/2022 05:32:39 am

Aligning something to true north is easy. You only need some rope and a few sticks.

Hanslune

10/17/2017 05:11:01 pm

Excellent materials. Will done professor White. May I suggest you have a link to all your 'normal people can' websites and materials?

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2/21/2019 08:40:30 pm

Big sizes of the things are reduced to the normal sizes with the request of the experts. It has been mounting to the pressure of the facilities. It has been termed for the flow of the offers for the movement of the normal sizes for the teaches.

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8/2/2022 10:35:44 pm

Nice post thanks foor sharing

Fani Atmanti link

4/23/2024 09:29:09 pm

Thank you for your post and sharing of the old archive in Bawömataluo Village. Until recent they still have the tradition to bring one big stone from the river to the settlement with the same technique. In Nias language, this activity bringing the megalith stone /daro daro it is called fondroli daro daro. Last time I photograph fondroli daro daro on 2015.

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Normal-Sized People Can Move Big Rocks: A Quick Note on the Megalithic Traditions of Nias, Indonesia

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