Easter Island

 Easter Island is most famous for its Moai — the large carved stone statues. The Moai were carved out of a particular type of compressed volcanic ash by the people of Easter Island (which they call Rapa Nui).  They aren’t that old.  Most seem to have been made between 1200 and 1500.  So most of our visit to Easter Island was about the Moai.

We started the day with a trip to the quarry where the Moai were made.  The quarry is actually a volcanic mountain, and the Moai were carved from the sides of the mountain.  The Moai were then transported across the island and placed on small platforms (ahu).  There are a lot of Moai still at the quarry, either still being carved out or left standing around the mountain (at least the side of the mountain where the carving was done).








Sometimes the Moai were standing alone, but when positioned correctly they are on a platform of rock called an ahu. Sometimes the ahu was a long rectangle and several Moai were standing next to each other.

The Moai were carved and transported for a long time.  The thinking is that the Moai represented the spirts of ancestors that watched over the island.  But eventually, for some reason, this belief was lost, and the islanders turned against the Moai and what they represented and toppled almost all of the Moai.


  We went to a site where there were many Moai which had been reconstructed in place.  

These Moai had been carved in the quarry, then moved to the site where the ahu was built.  More Moai were added, but eventually they were toppled by the inhabitants of Easter Island.  This was compounded by a tsunami that swept across from an earthquake in Chile in 1960, and further broke and jumbled the statues.  It took over 5 years for them to piece everything back together and stand them back up on the ahu.  The archeology team that reconstructed these statues were our guides.




After viewing the Moai, we took a short break for lunch and a swim in the Pacific Ocean from a sandy beach.  Linda enjoyed a the water -- Jim did not join in.


Then we viewed another ahu with more Moai, and then back to the hotel.  We finished the day with a dinner and a presentation of dance by the Rapa Nui.









 

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