What is the most famous Easter Island statue?
When dawn breaks on Easter Island, it is the moai that first feel the sun. These 15 moai at a site called Tongariki are perhaps the most famous. Carved out of volcanic rock, they’re placed on a stone platform called an ahu. The tallest is nearly 30 feet.
How many statues are on Easter Island exactly?
Its nearly 1,000 statues, some almost 30 feet tall and weighing as much as 80 tons, are still an enigma, but the statue builders are far from vanished. In fact, their descendants are making art and renewing their cultural traditions in an island renaissance.
What statues are on Easter Island?
Moai statues are massive megaliths at Easter Island, and these are what this island is famous for. The moais were built in approximately 1400 – 1650 A.D. by the natives of this island also known as Rapa Nui. Many know them as the Easter Island heads .
What did the Easter Island statues look like?
A completed moai is made of three parts: a large yellow body, a red hat or topknot (called pukao), and white inset eyes with a coral iris. Approximately 1,000 of these sculptures, shaped with humanoid faces and torsos, were created, most of which range between 6 and 33 feet tall and weighing several tons.
What do the statues on Easter Island represent?
Archaeologists believe that the statues were a representation of the ancient Polynesians’ ancestors. The moai statues face away from the ocean and towards the villages as if to watch over the people. The exception is the seven Ahu Akivi which face out to sea to help travelers find the island.
How did the moai get buried?
Most production of Moai had ceased in the early 1700s due to western contact. The two statues Van Tilburg’s team excavated had been almost completely buried by soils and rubble.
Where are the Easter Island statues located?
The statues of Easter Island are spread all around the island….
| The Moaïs | |
|---|---|
| Visitors | 80 000/year |
| Location: Easter island (Chile) | |
| GPS: 27° 6’45.80″ South / 109°20’58.87″ West | |
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What is the mystery of Easter Island?
Deforestation, slavery and rats were all factors in the Pacific island’s population decline. Most people have heard of the decimation of the population of Easter Island (also called Rapa Nui) and have seen pictures of the massive stone statues (moai) that line the coastline.
What did the statues on Easter Island represent?
The stone moai statues of Easter Island represent revered ancestors of tribal groups who lived on Easter Island. These statues were erected above rectangular stone tomb platforms, facing inland, to protect the villagers who lived there.
Where are the stone statues on Easter Island?
Easter Island ( Rapa Nui in Polynesian ) is a Chilean island in the southern Pacific Ocean famous for it’s stone head statues called Moai .
How did statues come to be on Easter Island?
The main bodies of most of the moai statues at Easter Island were sculpted out of the volcanic tuff from the Rano Raraku quarry, the remains of an extinct volcano. The Rano Raraku tuff is a sedimentary rock made from layers of air-lain, partially fused and partially cemented volcanic ash, fairly easy to carve but very heavy to transport.
How many moai statues are there on Easter Island?
About 900 moai statues are located on Easter Island. Most of them are at the Rano Raraku quarry placed around the island, along the shores, like they were put there to guard.