![]() ![]() ![]() The moai were carved with stone tools, mostly in a single quarry, then transported without draft animals or wheels to massive stone platforms, or ahu, up to 11 miles away. Yet when Dutch explorers landed on Easter Sunday in 1722, they met a Stone Age culture. All the energy and resources that went into the moai-which range in height from four to 33 feet and in weight to more than 80 tons-came from the island itself. After it was settled, it remained isolated for centuries. It lies 2,150 miles west of South America and 1,300 miles east of Pitcairn, its nearest inhabited neighbor. “How did they do it?”Įaster Island covers just 63 square miles. ![]() “This is something produced from my culture. “It’s something strange and energetic,” he says. They watch over this remote island from a remote age, but when Tuki stares at their faces, he feels a surge of connection. At Anakena seven potbellied moai stand at attention on a 52-foot-long stone platform-backs to the Pacific, arms at their sides, heads capped with tall pukao of red scoria, another volcanic rock. He’s a Rapanui, an indigenous Polynesian resident of Rapa Nui, as the locals call Easter Island his own ancestors probably helped carve some of the hundreds of statues that stud the island’s grassy hills and jagged coasts. A frigid wind gusted in from Antarctica, making Tuki shiver. Sleepless roosters crowed stray dogs barked. ![]()
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