The islanders call them "moai," and they have puzzled ethnographers, archaeologists, and visitors to the island since the first European explorers arrived here in In their isolation, why did the early Easter Islanders undertake this colossal statue-building effort?
Unfortunately, there is no written record and the oral history is scant to help tell the story of this remote land, its people, and the significance of the nearly giant moai that punctuate Easter Island's barren landscape. What do they mean? The moai and ceremonial sites are along the coast, with a concentration on Easter Island's southeast coast. Here, the moai are more 'standardized' in design, and are believed to have been carved, transported, and erected between AD and Also, the further away statues are from the statue quarry Rano Raraku and the higher the elevation of their final destination, the smaller the statues are, because people had to drag them there.
The moai hats actually represent topknots - hair, tied up like a ball on top of the head, called pukao in Rapa Nui. The mana supernatural powers was according to ancient beliefs preserved in the hair, which is why chieftains never cut their hair.
Below are three different accounts that tell how the moai hats were put in place on top of the statues. The three people who originally told these stories Tori, Huhu Kahu and Veriamo were all born before , before the ancient Rapa Nui culture reached its end, which makes these accounts a valuable and reliable resource. Most elders have a collection of these in their homes and big quantities are scattered at museums all over the world. The usage of these stones would be anything that would require a sharp edge, such as cutting fibers for clothing, house building, mats, ropes etc , carving wooden sculptures or rongo-rongo , as well as for spear points.
It's a common misunderstanding that all of these stones were used for warfare. If this translation was to be true, it would mean that basically every archaeological find at Rapa Nui would be a weapon, which obviously isn't realistic. Even a dedicated matato'a , war chief , would surely during his life span use a greater quantity of fiber cutting tools for daily life than weapons. Read what others say about us at our TripAdvisor page. Tours Cruise ship tours Hotel packages.
Ahu Tongariki. Rano Raraku , awaiting transportation. Video from Thor Heyerdahl's visit of Rapa Nui native demonstrating how statues walked. Aliens placing a moai statue at Rapa Nui. This is what my grandfather Tori 'a Papaveri said to me:. To make the moai hat reach its place, a pile of rocks was built. The hat was pushed and pushed upwards to the head of the moai. This is a question of much debate among scholars in the field, although there is a consensus they were built sometime between and AD.
That means all the statues are least years old, if not much more. The size of each Moai varies significantly, but on average they are 13 feet 4 meters tall and weigh 13 tonnes. Some are much bigger, however, with the tallest measuring a whopping 33 feet 12 meters and weighing in at 82 tonnes. The largest unfinished Moai would have been 69 feet 21 meters and weighed as much as tonnes.
Some statues have been discovered throughout the island. In reality, there are likely many more still buried underground or that were shipped off to faraway lands. Each statue most likely represents an important ancestral inhabitant of the island. They are thought to have been built to serve as a kind of repository, with the bigger statues providing their relevant communities with a huge amount of spiritual and political power.
Almost all were set facing inland to watch over and provide protection to the communities who built them. Jul 23, , am EDT.
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