Chile - Easter Island, Ahu Tongariki

Easter Island - or Rapa Nui as the locals call their island - is well known for its moai, the great carved stone statues staring stonily across the island’s barren hills. The islanders used stone tools to carve a statue out of volcanic tuff. The statues were secured by bark rope attached to tree trunk capstans at the top of the ‘moai factory’. Then they were lowered down the slope into pits where, upstanding right, they were carved in the familiar shape. From there they were transported over the island to their final resting places.

Each statue was carved to represent a specific deified ancestor - moai means “for the progeny” or “for the descendants” - that’s why there are no two statues alike. There are almost 900 moai recorded on Rapa Nui; almost 400 still in the quarry, between 164 and 288 on an ahu (a raised rectangular platform used as a place of worship) and 200 remain on the spot were they fell or were left during transport. The average moai weighs 12,5 tons and stands 4 metres high.

The largest site on Rapa Nui with standing moai is Ahu Tongariki. It has fifteen stone statues lined up and also the largest moai ever erected on the island with a weight of more than 86 tons. One of them is wearing a so called pukao, topknots or hats. They were carved out of a relatively soft red volcanic stone and number around a hundred.

The fifteen moai were toppled in the 17th century, as were all other of these statues on the island, during a tribal war. An earthquake off the coast of Chile in 1960 produced a tsunami that tossed the moai of Ahu Tongariki - some weighing up to 30 tons - more than 600 metres inland. In October 1992 an agreement was signed between the Government of Chile and the Moai Restoration Committee of Japan to restore Ahu Tongariki, which as finally completed in 1996.