Easter Island (Rapa Nui)

Culture (1), "The Rise of the Moai"

Wild speculation about UFO's, Atlantis, and vanished advanced ancient races has always been a part of the Easter Island debate. Science has made great strides in understanding who made the giant statues of Easter Island and has put to rest these bizarre stories. This short pictorial essay will hopefully clear up continuing misconceptions about Easter Island and perhaps will get you thinking about how the story of Easter Island relates to what we as humans are currently doing to our planet. This is a story everyone should read.

Easter Island - Rapa Nui, is a tiny speck of land in the South Pacific. Formed by a series of massive volcanic eruptions, the island was only inhabited by sea birds and dragonflies for millions of years. Its steep slopes, however, stood out like a beacon to a weary group of Polynesian seafarers. How long their voyage took or their reasons for leaving their home country are questions that we'll never have the answer to, but we can imagine their joy at seeing this sight after what must have been months at sea.

Lava tubes and pounding waves have created hundreds of sea caves and a trecherous coastline. There are only a few small areas that are safe for anchorages.

Located in the South Pacific between Chile and Tahiti, Easter Island is one of the most isolated inhabited islands in the world. Roughly triangular and covering only 64 square miles, it formed when a plume of hot material rose from deep within Earth's interior, burned through the crust and erupted onto the surface as lava.

Today, volcanic cones are found at each point of the island. The largest, Rano Kau is easily visible from space. The Highest is Terevaka, which rises to 11674 feet above sea level. There are over 70 eruptive centers on the island but none has know activity since the island was colonized 1300 years ago.

Ovahe and Anakena Beach, North Shore
This sheltered sand beach of Ovahe is close by to Anakena, where the legends say King Hoto Matua landed his double hulled canoe, thus beginning the occupation of Easter Island.

Anakena, a beautiful white sand beach stands out from the rest of the coastline, which is either sharp black lava rock or vertical cliff faces hundreds of feet tall.

It is at Anakena that the legends say Hotu Matua landed and began the colonization of the island. Excavations of this area have discovered that it was an important site and it boasts one of the best collections of erected Moai on the island, Ahu Naunau. The voyagers started constructing villages and houses made in an unusual elliptical shape. It has been speculated that this style of construction started when the new arrivals turned their boats upside down for quick housing. There were literally hundreds of remains of these foundations on the island in the 1800's, but most were destroyed by the missionaries to make fences.

Indeed, the missionaries did more damage to the island's history than even the Peruvian slave traders, which carted off most of the island's population. Those who escaped by hiding in the island's many caves were "saved"; by these missionaries, who proceeded to destroy all the islander's wooden sculptures, religious artifacts and most importantly, the Rongo Rongo Tablets, which contained a record of the lost language of the Rapa Nui. So few of these tablets remain that no one has been able to decipher them satisfactorly.

The first islanders found a lush island, filled with giant Palms which they used to build boats and housing. The plants they brought with them did well in the rich volcanic soil and by AD 1550 population on the island hit a high of between 7000 and 9000. Distict clans formed as the population increased and various population centers grew up in different areas of the island. One thing tied them all together, however, the statue construction and the cult that formed around it.

Statue Construction
It is unclear why the Easter Islanders turned to statue construction on such a massive scale. Their obsession with it ultimately brought about their downfall as they depleted more and more of the forests for use in the process of moving the giant Moai. While the why is a mystery, where it happened and to a large degree how it happened is fairly clear. Each Moai was born from the massive caldera of Rano Raraku. (right)

The soft volcanic tuff was perfect material for statue carving. Using harder volcanic rock implements they were able to first sketch out the Moai's outline in the rock wall and then systematically chip away at it until the Moai was held in place by a thin "keel".

The moai carvers were master craftsmen that had rose through the ranks of a "carver's guild". The production of the statues was most likely through conscripted labour with many rituals and ceremonies performed throughout the process. The stone carvers were ingenious in making the most out of sections of rock. Moai can be seen carved in all directions in the cliff face. If a defect would appear in the rock the statue would be abandoned and they moved on to another area. They took advantage of fissures in the volcanic walls and also variations in colors. In short they were true artists.

Finally when a statue was finished, it was broken off its keel and slid carefully down the slope using ropes tied to giant palm trunks which were sunk in specially prepared holes in rim of the crater. At the base of the crater they were raised up and final decorations were carved into its torso and back.

Preparation was then made for transport across the island to various Ahu. The ahu were the ceremonial platforms built to support collections of Moai. As evidence of the difficulty moving the moai, many can be seen along the paths of ancient roadways where they broke along the way and were abandoned.

It is believed that the statues were commissioned commemorative images of lineage heads. However, the moai are not portraits of specific individuals although some may have inscriptions or other markings that linked them with specific chiefs. Why they chose the stylize design of the angular face and long phallus shaped bodies is unclear and is one of the greatest mysteries of the Rapa Nui.

While there are some other stone sculptures made by Polynesians none is similar to the moai. In parts of South America some statues have been found that resemble the "kneeling" statue found on Rano Raraku (see Tour section) nothing, anywhere, resembles the standardized moai design that the Rapa Nui carved over a thousand times.

Erecting the Statues
Once the statues were reasonably complete they then had to be transported across the island to the platforms prepared for them. This involved a trek of 14 miles in some cases. How were these massive Moai moved to the sites? Barring any extraterrestrial influence it seems likely that they were rolled along the ancient roads that crisscrossed the island on logs lubricated with the oils from palm trees.

Some suggest that they were moved in an upright position and kept stable by crews manning ropes. This mode would verify the islands legends of the statues "walking" to their sites. From a distance seeing one of these great Moai moving along the road bobbing up and down as the logs moved underneath would surely have looked like statue moving under its own power with a procession along side it. What a sight that would have been.

Recent computer simulations, however, by Jo Anne Van Tilburg at UCLA, have shown that it would have been much simpler to position the Moai in a horizontal position on two large logs and then roll the whole unit along on other logs placed perpendicular to it. Using this method Van Tilburg calculated that an average moai could have been moved from the quarry to Ahu Akivi in less than 5 days, using approximately 70 men.

Her theories were recently put to the test in a successful experiment to move a moai replica on Easter Island.


	Ahu Vai Uri	Ahu Vinapu

Although they were an incredible engineering feat, most of the ahu build were less than elegant constructions. At one mysterious site however, it was much different.

The picture in the middle is Ahu Vai Uri, compare the stonework of it to the image of Ahu Vinapu, on the southern shore near Rano Kau. In the detail shot you can see the incredible precision in the stone fittings. It was this precision, so similar to the stonework done by the Incas, that gave Thor Heyerdahl the idea that the Easter Islanders had come from South America in reed boats on the prevailing currents. Stonework of this complexity had not been seen in Polynesia, but it was common in Peru. It's impossible to look at that site and not think of the exact type of stone fitting which is so common in sites like Machu Picchu. Most archaeologists consider the similarities a coincidence. If so it is a remarkable one.

Soon ahu with erected moai were installed on all corners of the island. Over one thousand moai had been carved. For years the competition to build the biggest and the best Moai went on. The population of the island continued to grow. Different ahu, each belonging to a different clan, formed an almost unbroken line along the coast of Easter Island. The culture had reached it's peak. And, then something went terribly wrong....

Continue at: Culture of Easter Island (2), "The fall of the Moai"

For more information on the Sights of Easter Island, go to:

Go for further general information on Easter Island to:

For travel information on Easter Island, go to:

We have included Easter Island in some of our specials to the South Pacific, eg. our Kontiki Voyage. Another option is to create your own package to Easter Island by utilizing the seperate travel components, like hotels, flights and excursions on the islands.

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