Rapa nui means “navel of the world,” and if that’s the case, this belly button is wearing a jewel–the remains of the Polynesian stone gods that put Easter Island on the map.
Most of the island is a national park, designed to protect and preserve these world class treasures. They’ve been attacked by wind, water (rain and tsunamis), earthquakes (as recently as the 1960s), internal warfare, and missionary zeal (which put an end to their worship, but not admiration). As I understand it, major restoration occurred in the 1960s, a byproduct of Thor Hyerdahl’s expedition to prove it was possible to sail canoes from Polynesia here.
The civilization that produced the statues fell victim to depleted resources/overpopulation, and essentially ended the statue period with a civil war in the 17th or 18th century, leaving what was where it was. Perhaps the most impressive area was the quarry, which contained 369 (above ground) statues in various states of construction. The statues can be upwards of 60 feet tall, with about 20 feet of that below ground. The bigger statues weigh up to 200,000 pounds and were transported from the quarry to various sites around the island, facing away from the sea. There are also a number of remains of homes built for clan leaders, using mostly lava stones (the island has a number of volcanoes, but they’ve been dormant for the last 300,000 years.
We visited a few other ahu–platforms–with a number of moai (the men) in straight lines. One was reconstructed by a joint Japanese-Chilean group with moai that had been toppled by an earthquake/tsunami in 1960.
What you don’t always see in the pictures is the setting. As I said, usually near the ocean, with the black lava rocks set off against the roiling surf here. The closest equivalent I’ve seen is Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the world’s largest religious ruins, but that’s in the jungle.
The national park consists of 25 individual sites, and I’m hoping that I can get another half dozen or so on our trips tomorrow.
I’m certainly glad I stopped over at the “navel of the world.”