Featured Photo: Moai at the quarry, Easter Island

In October 2007, I was fortunate to be asked to escort a small group to Easter Island as an add-on to a Patagonia tour I was leading. Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited places anywhere and offers a fascinating glimpse into a mysterious, vanished civilization. The famous giant statues, called moai, date back to approximately 1250 to 1500 A.D. and were erected in locations throughout the island, usually in rows on altars known as ahu. They are believed to represent powerful chiefs or ancestral figures, and to have served as conduits to the gods. Because of their significance to the different lineages on the island, the statues were toppled during intertribal warfare in the 17th and 18th centuries. Since the 1950s, many moai have been restored and returned to their altar platforms.

Many people think of moai as just big heads, but completed moai actually portray whole-body figures. The misperception comes from the fact that the most photographed statues are buried up to their necks at the original quarry site and were never raised on altars. Nearly all the moai were carved from the stone at a single quarry at the volcanic crater known as Rano Raraku, which was used for about 500 years before being abandoned in the early 18th century. Nearly 400 moai remain on the slopes of the volcano, in various stages of completion. This photo shows three moai at Rano Raraku.