Moai Statues

Moai Statues Latest News

A study warns that rising sea levels could submerge Easter Island’s iconic moai statues by 2080 and it will threaten the island’s cultural identity and tourism economy.

About Moai Statues

• They are massive megalithic stone-carved human-shaped statues found at Easter Island.
• The Easter Island statues are monolithic human figures carved from volcanic rock by the first Polynesian settlers on the island, the Rapa Nui people.
• They were built in approximately 1400 – 1650 A.D. by the natives of this island known as Rapa Nui.
• There are around 1000 Moai statues which are made up of volcanic tuff, the tallest of them being 33 feet.
• They carved them in the likeness of their ancestors.

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What do Moais Represent?

• They were built to honor chieftains or other important people who had passed away.
• They were placed on rectangular stone platforms called ahu, which are tombs for the people that the statues represented.
• The moais were intentionally made with different characteristics since they were intended to keep the appearance of the person they represented.

Key Facts about Easter Island

• It is located in the eastern Pacific Ocean. Together with Hawaii and New Zealand, it forms the so-called ‘Polynesian Triangle’, a spearhead-shaped area in the Pacific that is the traditional homeland of the Polynesian people.

Source: DTE