What is the cultural significance of the moai?
The ahu and moai are sacred to the people of Rapa Nui today, a source of mana – power and spiritual energy, and also tapu – sacred with implied prohibition.
What do the Easter Island statues represent?
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 one theory of the moai?
One of the most popular theories is that the Easter Island statues were tied up with rope and then moved by a group of people working together. Another theory claims that they were moved by laying them down on top of a wooden platform, which was then used to push them around.
Why did the Rapa Nui hide in caves?
One of the most famous, mythical and least visited places of the Poike volcano is the Ana o Keke cave. This cavern, with a hidden location, is also known as the cave of the virgins since in the past some young girls were confined inside to protect their purity and maintain the whiteness of their skin.
How did 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 the moai were built?
Easter Island – The Statues and Rock Art of Rapa Nui. Using basalt stone picks, the Easter Island Moai were carved from the solidified volcanic ash of Rano Raraku volcano. Once completed, the statues were then moved from the quarry to their intended site and erected on an ‘ahu’.
Where did the moai come from?
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.
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 do moai face inland?
The story goes that the people who built the Moai believed that they were the only people in the whole world. Any invaders or bad people that would be coming would have to come from within the island – not by sea! So the Moai face inwards to protect the community.
When was the last moai carved?
The moai of 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. Over a few hundred years the inhabitants of this remote island quarried, carved and erected around 887 moai.
What is carved on the back of Hoa Hakananai A?
According to the team, other observations from the digital imaging include: when Hoa Hakananai’a was half-buried by soil and food debris, small designs known as komari, representing female genitalia, were carved on the back of the head.
Who took Hoa Hakananai A?
Commodore Richard Powell
Did giants live on Easter Island?
Some scientists have estimated, that, at its height, Easter Island’s population may have been as high as 20,000, but fell over centuries after the island’s trees and palms were cut down to build canoes and transport its famous giant statues. Only 111 inhabitants were living on Easter Island by 1877.