The Moai Statues

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL FIND

The Moai statues (also known as the “Easter Island Heads”) originated on a Polynesian Island called Rapa Nui, located in the Southeastern Pacific Ocean. It was there that the statues were created by the early Rapa Nui people because it was believed that the statue could protect the clans and ceremonial areas and the heads also supposedly brought spiritual powers to the builder. Unfortunately this was proved false since Polynesian rats, diseases, and overpopulation (which led to the extinction of natural resources) along with food shortages and endemic conflict, overall, caused the demise of the Rapa Nui population thus, proving those beliefs wrong. The statues were introduced to us when the Europeans arrived in 1722 C.E.. The Moai were inadvertently found since the Europeans didn’t come to research the statues.

MY ARTIFACT AND HOW IT WAS FOUND

Since natural resources were scarce there, the islanders grew their food in rock gardens to keep moisture in and to protect the plants.

LAND OF EASTER ISLAND

The Moaí were built in between the 14th century and the 18th century. They were, of course, built on Easter

Island. They belonged to a cult religion called the Birdman cult which centered around a strange ritual that included swimming to a rocky outcrop and retrieving an egg. Some statues (being around an estimated number of 887 to 3,000 statues) are in better shape than others due to elements of the weather and position. Some also are in bad shape since they had been toppled over, broken, or

disfigured. Legend states that this was caused by centuries of deadly conflict between rival clans, each

determined to deface each others statues.

AGE AND CULTURE OF ARTIFACTS

On the back of an Easter Head called “Hoa Hakananai’a” (in a museum in England) they found images that archaeologists are now studying. An excavation group searched to find who exposed the front of a statue (titled RR-001-156) to a fire set near the statue in 1920. They

know this because there was a large fire scar in the soil. This same group was trying to find out who set the fire

using a picture that they had yet to identify. There was also major excavation that was done to document the rock art

on the stone’s torso. While they did this, they found dozens of stone tools as they screened the wet, heavy, soil on the

island.

RELATED RESEARCH

Easter Island politically belongs to Chile since 1888 and until 1965 the Chileans kept the natives as prisoners on their own island. The first European to see Easter Island was Jacob Roggeveen. The Europeans brought some of the diseases that killed the natives of

Easter Island but the two main ones were smallpox, (brought by the Peruvians slavers) and tuberculosis – which was brought by the

islanders because they were slaves in South America. When they were freed, they returned home and brought back the disease. The

tallest known statue on Easter Island was about 72 meters high, weighing over 160 tonnes (176 tons). The average height of a statue

there is about 4 meters. Nearly all the heads were carved from a volcanic stone called “tuff”. After they were made, the statues were

(possibly) “walked” into place by using ropes with the statues leaning slightly forward and using motion from side to side which

required around 18 people.

INTERESTING FACTS OR OBSERVATIONS

World Archaeology. (2014). Retrieved from http://www.world-archaeology.com/

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Jo Anne Van Tilburg. (2013). Easter Island Statue Project. Retrieved from http://www.eisp.org/

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Cris. (June 21 2013). Structures, Histories and countries. Retrieved from http://tenrandomfacts.com/moai-statues/

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