These moais are half buried in the ground still at the quarry.

Moai statues at Anakena, the headress came from a different quarry and was fitted on site.

The beach behind the moais at Anakena. Most settlements were by the sea.

The 16th moai, though I think I've got a smaller nose.

This poor fella got so close but broke just short of the platform.

Two moais that didn't make it out of the rock face.

The only maoi ever found that was in a kneeling position and looking to the sky.

Tongariki from the quarry, the biggest groupings and largest moais are at sites nearest the quarry.

This is the material they are made from, compacted ash and stone.

They said bring snacks, the only healthy thing about these biscuits is the packaging is recyclable.

A reconstruction of the type of place that members of the higher echelons of society would live in.

Amazingly this was a hen house, chickens and eggs were more ceremonial than for everyday use.

All animals on the island are introduced, including up to 60,000 sheep during the 1800s.

Lots of very well fed stay dogs in town, some are quite happy to sit with you for a stroke.

At first I was disappointed I couldn't see the sun setting, but this is pretty dramatic.

The Moai Statues

February 17 in Chile ⋅ ☁️ 25 °C

Today was the first day of a two day tour around the island. Time appears to be quite a fluid concept on the island as we were given a pick up time between 9:30 and 10:30 and amazingly we were picked up on time.

For a pretty small island it once had the longest runway in the whole of South America when it was extended in 1978 to two miles long. The works were paid for by NASA as part of the space shuttle programme, to provide for an alternative landing option should there be issues when returning from space.

Today's tour visited six of the main sites around the island relating to the moai, the carved stone figures placed on platforms on top of the remains of high ranking members of the island's society. Rather than volcanic rock the figures are carved from a softer material made up of compacted volcanic ash, small stones and larger rocks. This made them easier to carve but also more delicate. The greatest failure rate came not form the carving process but from actually moving them to site. The largest Moai to make it to site was 80 tonnes, where a further 20 tonne headress was put on. Though there are several theories it is not known how they were moved.

One theory was that they had extra mass on the front and back and using ropes teams of people were able walk them forward in a rocking motion a bit like the Weeble toys. A passed down song in the Rapa Nui language talks of the moais walking from the quarry to their platforms.

They were made roughly between 1,200 and 1,500. Tribal wars on the island meant by the 1,800s all of the structures had been pushed over as acts of aggression or revenge. Today 288 have been reconstructed, some 400 never made it out of the quarry and are in there in various state of completion and almost 100 can be found laying around the island having been broken on their way to site.

The most famous site is Tongariki with its 15 moais on a platform with their backs to the sea. Moais always faced the settlement that they came from. So they would be looking over their descendants. In 1960 this site was hit by a tsunami and all the statues were washed several hundred metres in land. A private Japanese company funded it's restoration.

Apparently, funding has never really been an issue in the restoration process across the island as many people and companies from around the world have been more than happy to be involved in many of the projects.Read more