Mystery of Easter Island: Moai Statues – Part 3
Though moai are whole-body statues, they are commonly referred to as “Easter Island heads”. This is partly because of the disproportionate size of most moai heads and partly because, from the invention of photography until the 1950s, the only moai standing on the island were the statues on the slopes of Rano Raraku, many of which are buried to their shoulders.
Some of the “heads” at Rano Raraku have been excavated and their bodies seen, and observed to have markings that had been protected from erosion by their burial. The average height of the moai is about 4 m (13 ft 1 in) high, with the average width at the base around 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) across. These massive creations usually weigh in at around 12.5 tonnes (13.8 tons) a piece. All but 53 of the 887 moai known to date were carved from tuff (a compressed volcanic ash) from Rano Raraku, where 394 moai and incomplete moai are still visible today. There are also 13 moai carved from basalt, 22 from trachyte and 17 from fragile red scoria. At the end of carving, the builders would rub the statue with pumice.
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