Averaging 13 feet (4 meters) high, with a weight of 13 tons, these enormous stone busts–known as
moai
–were carved out of tuff (the light, porous rock formed by consolidated volcanic ash) and placed atop ceremonial stone platforms called ahus.
What are the Easter Island statues known as?
Easter Island (Rapa Nui in Polynesian) is a Chilean island in the southern Pacific Ocean famous for it’s stone head statues called
Moai
. When you first see a Moai statue you are drawn to its disproportionately large head (compared to body length) and that is why they are commonly called “Easter Island Heads”.
What are the rock statues on Easter Island called?
Easter Island is famous for its stone statues of human figures, known as
moai (meaning “statue”)
. The island is known to its inhabitants as Rapa Nui. The moai were probably carved to commemorate important ancestors and were made from around 1000 C.E. until the second half of the seventeenth century.
What are the things called on Easter Island?
The island is most famous for its nearly 1,000 extant monumental statues,
called moai
, which were created by the early Rapa Nui people.
What are the Easter Island heads called?
The Easter Island heads are known as
Moai
by the Rapa Nui people who carved the figures in the tropical South Pacific directly west of Chile. The Moai monoliths, carved from stone found on the island, are between 1,100 and 1,500 CE.
What does moai mean?
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. … Almost all moʻai have overly large heads three-eighths the size of the whole statue.
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 is the purpose of moai?
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.
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
.
Who lives on Easter Island today?
Today, the people living on Easter Island are
largely descendants of the ancient Rapa Nui
(about 60%) and run the bulk of the tourism and conservation efforts on the island. Many locals living on Easter Island have livelihoods that involve the water—which makes sense!
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.
Do the Easter Island heads really have bodies?
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
.”
How much do the moai statues weigh?
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.
How did humans get to Easter Island?
Some scientists say that Easter Island was not inhabited until 700–800 CE. … The Austronesian Polynesians, who first settled the island, are likely to have arrived from the Marquesas Islands from the west. These settlers brought bananas, taro, sugarcane, and paper mulberry, as
well as chickens and Polynesian rats
.
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.
How much does it cost to fly to Easter Island?
| Expense Cost (daily) | Transportation $24,000 CLP ($37 USD) | Total $66,000 CLP ($100 USD) | Total (four days) $264,000 CLP ($400 USD) + flights | *You can reduce this to $16,000 CLP (camping) or $30,000 CLP (dorm) |
|---|
