The tools used for carving the moai statues are called toki , and are simple handheld chisels. They have been found in countless numbers in all excavations at Rano Raraku – particularly around the statues. The highest quality toki are made of hawaiite, which is the hardest kind of rock found at Easter Island.
How did they build the moai?
The moai were individually carved out of single bays of the rock rather than a big open area like a modern quarry. It appears that most were carved lying on their backs. After the carving was completed, the moai were detached from the rock, moved down-slope, and erected vertically, when their backs were dressed.
What is moai made out of?
Most moai are made of tuff . Tuff is a soft volcanic rock native to Easter Island. (A few moai were carved from basalt and scoria, other volcanic rocks.) Because tuff erodes easily, few of the moai’s original designs remain.
How did they build Easter Island?
An isolated triangle measuring 14 miles long by seven miles wide, Easter Island was formed by a series of volcanic eruptions . In addition to its hilly terrain, the island contains many subterranean caves with corridors that extend deep into mountains of volcanic rock.
How did the Easter Island statues walk?
They replicate a statues weighed 5 tons, and found volunteers to move it . It was placed upright, as the history suggested, “standing” on the ground. Three groups of ropes were tied on the groove of the eye socket of the replica, and volunteers cooperated to pull and made the Moai twist.
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.
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.
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.
How did the moai get moved?
With one rope around the head of the statue and another around the base, they “walked” the moai replica forward by swiveling and rocking it from side to side . Using this method, Pavel Pavel estimated that an experienced crew could move a statue approximately 650 feet each day.
How many moai are there?
Archaeologists have documented 887 of the massive statues, known as moai, but there may up as many as 1,000 of them on the island. Most were carved from volcanic rock between 1100 and 1680.
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 .”
Is Easter Island sinking?
Rising ocean levels are causing waves to break on the statues and platforms built a thousand years ago. The island risks losing its cultural heritage. Again.
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 .
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.
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.
What happened to all the trees on Easter Island?
There is good evidence that the trees largely disappeared between 1200 and 1650 . Assuming that wood was used to move statues, a popular proposal was formulated that the islanders, besotted with their moai, cut down all the palm trees in order to move statues.
