Where did the Easter Island heads come from?

Easter Island – The Statues and Rock Art of Rapa Nui. Using basalt stone picks, the Easter Island Moai were carved from the solidified volcanic ash of Rano Raraku volcano. They are all monolithic the carvings are created in one piece and an average weight of 20 tons and measuring 20 feet tall or more.

Why were Easter Island statues built?

Moai statues were built to honor chieftain or other important people who had passed away. They were placed on rectangular stone platforms called ahu, which are tombs for the people that the statues represented.

What is the history of Easter Island heads?

Located nearly 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile in the Pacific Ocean, Easter Island is famous for the nearly 1,000 enormous stone statues, known as moai. The massive works were erected there starting around the 13th century A.D. by the Rapa Nui, an ancient Polynesian society that later collapsed mysteriously.

Are there bodies under the Easter Island heads?

As a part of the Easter Island Statue Project, the team excavated two moai and discovered that each one had a body, proving, as the team excitedly explained in a letter, “that the ‘heads’ on the slope here are, in fact, full but incomplete statues.”

Are there any Easter Islanders left?

The Rapa Nui are the indigenous Polynesian people of Easter Island. At the 2017 census there were 7,750 island inhabitants—almost all living in the village of Hanga Roa on the sheltered west coast.

What does moai stand for?

listen), or moai (Spanish: moái, Rapa Nui: moʻai, meaning “statue” in Rapa Nui), are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500.

How did the moai statues fall?

Construction of the moai statues appears to have stopped around the time of European contact in 1722, when Dutch explorers landed on Easter Day. Over the next century the moai would fall over, either intentionally pushed over or from simple neglect.

Why was moai toppled?

Why were the Moai toppled? Yet by the end of the 19th century, the Moai reportedly had all toppled and fallen over. There are different theories about this – some believe it was because of earthquake activity, others say the statues were toppled during tribal wars as a way of humiliating their opposition.

How were the moai moved?

With one rope around the head of the statue and another around the base, they ” walked” the moai replica forward by swiveling and rocking it from side to side. Using this method, Pavel Pavel estimated that an experienced crew could move a statue approximately 650 feet each day.

How did humans get to Easter Island?

Linguists estimate Easter Island’s first inhabitants arrived around AD 400, and most agree that they came from East Polynesia. These linguistic links point to a genealogical bond that ties the people of the Pacific to one another. Indeed, in 1994, DNA from 12 Easter Island skeletons was found to be Polynesian.

Does Easter Island have a flag?

The flag of Easter Island (Rapa Nui: Te Reva Reimiro) is the flag of Easter Island, a special territory of Chile. It was first flown in public alongside the national flag on 9 May 2006.

Why is it called Easter Island?

The first known European visitor to Easter Island was the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen, who arrived in 1722. The Dutch named the island Paaseiland (Easter Island) to commemorate the day they arrived.

What is the tallest moai in the world?

The tallest moai erected, called Paro, was almost 10 metres (33 ft) high and weighed 82 tons; the heaviest erected was a shorter but squatter moai at Ahu Tongariki, weighing 86 tons; and one unfinished sculpture, if completed, would have been approximately 21 metres (69 ft) tall with a weight of about 270 tons.

Can you buy land on Easter Island?

Decades ago, the property was acquired by the government, and then traded between private owners. By law, only Rapanui can own land on Easter Island. But the law is not strictly enforced.