Easter Island is famous for
its enigmatic moat statues.
On Easter Sunday, 1722 Easter Island was found and
named by its first recorded European visitor, the Dutch
explorer Jacob Roggeveen.[
It is one of the most isolated islands in the
world but 1200 years ago a double-hulled
canoe filled with seafarers from a distant
culture landed upon its shores.
Located in the South Pacific between
Chile and Tahiti, Easter Island is one of
the most isolated inhabited islands in the
world.
Over the centuries that followed a remarkable
society developed in isolation on the island.
Its steep slopes, stood out like a
beacon to a weary group of
Polynesian seafarers.
The people of Easter Island called
themselves the Rapa Nui. Where did they
come from and why did they disappear?
In 1994, DNA from 12
Easter Island skeletons
was found to be Polynesian.
Ovahe Beach, North Shore
This sheltered sand beach is close to
Anakena, where the legends say King Hoto
Matua landed his double hulled canoe, thus
beginning the occupation of Easter Island.
For reasons still unknown they began
carving giant statues out of volcanic rock.
These monuments, known, as "moai" are
some of the most incredible ancient relics
ever discovered.
Roughly triangular and covering only 64
square miles, it formed when a plume of
hot material rose from deep within Earth's
interior, burned through the crust and
erupted onto the surface as lava.
The first islanders found a lush island, filled with
giant palms which they used to build boats and
houses. The plants they brought with them did
well in the rich volcanic soil and by AD 1550
population on the island hit a high of between
7000 and 9000.
Distinct clans formed as the population
increased and various population centers
grew up in different areas of the island.
One thing tied them all together however
— the statue construction and the cult
that formed around it.
It is unclear why the Easter Islanders turned to
statue construction on such a massive scale.
Their obsession with it ultimately brought about
their downfall as they depleted more and more of
the forests for use in the process of moving the
giant moai.
While the why is a mystery, where it
happened and to a large degree how it
happened is fairly clear. Each moai was
born from the massive caldera of Rano
Raraku.
.
While there are some other stone sculptures
made by Polynesians, none is similar to the
moai. In parts of South America, some statues
have been found which resemble the "kneeling"
statue on Rano Raraku, but nothing anywhere
else resembles the standardized moai design
that the Rapa Nui carved over a thousand times.
The soft volcanic tuff was perfect material for
statue carving. Using harder volcanic rock
implements they were able to first sketch out the
moai's outline in the rock wall and then
systematically chip away at it until the moai was
held in place by a thin "keel."
Finally when a statue was finished, it was broken
off its keel and slid carefully down the slope using
ropes tied to giant palm trunks which were sunk
in specially prepared holes in rim of the crater.
At the base of the crater they were raised up
and final decorations were carved into its torso
and back. Coral and obsidian eyes were placed
in as a final touch, although some suggest
these were only placed in the statues on
special occasions. Preparation was then made
for transport across the island to various ahu.
As evidence of the difficulty moving the moai,
many can be seen along the paths of ancient
roadways where they broke along the way and
were abandoned.
The moai carvers were master craftsmen that
had rose through the ranks of a "carver's guild."
The production of the statues was most likely
through conscripted labor with many rituals and
ceremonies performed throughout the process
Once the statues were reasonably
complete, they then had to be
transported across the island to the
platforms prepared for them. This
involved a trek of 14 miles in some cases.
Once the journey was complete the Moai were
positioned atop great platforms called ahu. Built
at the edge of the ocean, the ahu required just
as much engineering know-how and raw labor
as the statue construction itself. It is here that
the Easter Islanders' stonework skills can fully
be appreciated.
The ahu platforms were
Built with extreme
Precision.
This shot is a close up of the
ahu above. These stone
cutters were good!
For decades the competition to
build the biggest and best moai
went on, and different ahu each belonging to a different
clan - formed an almost
unbroken line along the coast
of Easter Island. The culture
had reached its zenith. And
then something went terribly
wrong . . .
A chilling story of resource exploitation and
destruction on Easter Island is beginning to
come to light. The first westerners to
discover the island wondered how any one
could have survived on such a desolate,
treeless place. Indeed, this was a mystery
until recent core samples taken from the
crater lakes showed that the island was
heavily forested with a giant now-extinct
palm tree while the Easter Island culture
was active.
Apparently the islanders were
greeted with a lush tropical
paradise when they first
discovered it. It must have
seemed inexhaustible. The
trees were cut for lumber for
housing, wood for fires, and
eventually for the rollers and
lever-like devices used to move
and erect the moai.
As the deforestation continued
the moai building competition
turned into an obsession.
The quarry was producing moai at sizes that
probably could never have been moved very far
(one unfinished moai in the quarry is 70 feet
tall!)
And still the trees came down. With the
loss of the forests, the land began to
erode. The small amount of topsoil quickly
washed into the sea.
The clans turned on one another in a battle
for the scarce resources. The symbols of
the islanders' power and success, the moai,
were toppled.
Eyes were smashed out of the moai and often
rocks were placed where the statues neck would
fall so it would decapitate the moai. The violence
grew worse and worse.
It was said that the victors would eat their dead
enemies to gain strength, bones found on the
island show evidence of this cannibalism.
With the scarce food supplies it may have been a
question of hunger as well as being ceremonial. A
spooky cave at the southwest corner of the
island, Ana Kai Tangata, is translated to
"cave where men are eaten."
Inside are pictographs painted in ochre and
white of ghost like birds flying upwards. With no
wood left to build boats, all the Rapa Nui people
could do was look enviously at the birds that
sail effortless through the sky.
Their island was in shambles, and
their villages and crops destroyed.
There was no wood left on the island
to build escape boats.
The few survivors of the conflict,
perhaps numbering as low as 750,
began to pick up the pieces of their
culture.
One thing they left behind, however,
were the moai....
One thing you half
to wonder about?
Who cut down the
last tree?
What possible
motivation could
there have been to
deprive the
Islanders’ of the
last tree?
If Easter Island was the only
place on Earth to suffer at the hands of
mankind run amuck,
then we would not need to worry.
BUT……..