Who built the Moai statues?

The Moai are a collection of large monolithic statues built by the Rapa Nui people of Easter Island.

Who made Easter Island statues?

The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues, called moai, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people. In 1995, UNESCO named Easter Island a World Heritage Site, with much of the island protected within Rapa Nui National Park.

How did the statues get on Easter Island?

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. Once completed, the statues were then moved from the quarry to their intended site and erected on an ‘ahu’.

What is the purpose of the statues on Easter Island?

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 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.

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.

Why are there no trees on Easter Island?

Easter Island was covered with palm trees for over 30,000 years, but is treeless today. There is good evidence that the trees largely disappeared between 1200 and 1650. However there is evidence the Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans) was present from 900 and it seems clear that these rats caused widespread deforestation.

What really happened on Easter Island?

According to Easter Island: The Truth Revealed, approximately 1,500 to 2,000 people – half the population – were taken in 1862 in a raid by slave traders from Peru to work there, predominately in agriculture. They brought disease with them and much of the remaining population was decimated.

How tall are moai statues?

On average, they stand 13 feet high and weigh 14 tons, human heads-on-torsos carved in the male form from rough hardened volcanic ash. The islanders call them “moai,” and they have puzzled ethnographers, archaeologists, and visitors to the island since the first European explorers arrived here in 1722.

Is Easter Island sinking?

Easter Island is VANISHING: Ancient site and clues to the civilisation that built its stunning stone sculptures are being slowly swallowed by rising seas. Easter Island and its mysterious history are slowly disappearing under rising seas.

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.

Does anyone live on Easter Island today?

About 5,000 people live on Easter Island today, and thousands of tourists come to see the anthropomorphic “moai” statues each year.

Who owns Easter Island today?

Known as Rapa Nui to its earliest inhabitants, the island was christened Paaseiland, or Easter Island, by Dutch explorers in honor of the day of their arrival in 1722. It was annexed by Chile in the late 19th century and now maintains an economy based largely on tourism.

What makes Easter Island so special?

Easter Island, Spanish Isla de Pascua, also called Rapa Nui, Chilean dependency in the eastern Pacific Ocean. It is the easternmost outpost of the Polynesian island world. It is famous for its giant stone statues.

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.