They stand with their backs to the sea and are believed by most archaeologists to
represent the spirits of ancestors, chiefs, or other high-ranking males who held important positions in the history of Easter
Island, or Rapa Nui, the name given by the indigenous people to their island in the 1860s.
What is the significance of the Easter Island statues?
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 is the mystery of the Easter Island statues?
What purpose do the statues of Easter island Have? Archaeologists suggest that the
statues were a representation of the Polynesian people’s ancestors
. The Moai statues face away from the sea and towards the villages, by way of watching over the people. So here at Ahu Tongariki these Moai look over a flat village site.
Why were some statues on Easter Island unfinished?
They were carved out of the volcanic ash stone or basalt in the quarries, then moved to the edges of the island.
Multiple statues did not make it to their destination
, either breaking or unable to be moved, they rest where they fell.
What exactly do the moais represent?
What do the Moai represent? It’s thought that the Moai were
symbols of religious and political power and leadership
. Carvings and sculptures in the Polynesian world often have strong spiritual meanings, and followers often believe a carving had magical or spiritual powers of the person or deity depicted.
How deep are Easter Island statues?
The logistics involved must have been staggering. The Moai were lowered to the ground by ropes in order for the carving to be completed. Thus we find, on the very peak of the volcano rim, round holes carved into the rock,
five feet deep
and over two feet in diameter.
What is the tallest moai?
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.
What language is spoken on Easter Island?
Islanders smile, sing and dance in polyester costumes to cater to the mostly Spanish-speaking spenders. Ever since Chile annexed Easter Island more than a century ago, the Spanish language has been chipping away at the Polynesian-based language called
Rapa Nui
.
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
.
Do 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
.”
Why did they build moai?
In the Rapa Nui language, the Easter Island statues are called Moai Aringa Ora, which means “the living face of our ancestors”. The most common interpretation is that these statues were
created in order to preserve the energy of the natives after death.
Why do the moai exist?
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.
How did the moai statues fall?
Construction of the moai statues appears to have stopped around the time of European contact in 1722, when Dutch explorers landed on Easter Day. Over the next century the moai would fall over,
either intentionally pushed over or from simple neglect
. Why construction was abandoned is another mystery.
What makes Easter Island so special?
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.
Where are the giant stone heads?
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.
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
.
