Rano Raraku on Rapa Nui: moai were lowered by ropes from the cliff into pre-dug pits, finished on site, then moved to platforms island-wide. Jo Anne Van Tilburg's Easter Island Statue Project catalogued 1,043 statues in 1982 🗿 The back petroglyphs came later, when the statues lay partly buried.
Rano Raraku quarry: 1,043 moai catalogued by the Easter Island Statue Project
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Key facts
- At the Rano Raraku quarry, statues were lowered by ropes from the cliff into pre-dug pits and set vertically, where craftsmen finished the small details before the statues were moved to platforms across the island.
- The quarry holds the island's largest statue, the unfinished 'Te Tokanga', 21.6 m tall and estimated at about 250 tons (roughly 500 tons if made of basalt); it remained partially connected to the bedrock.
- The largest statue ever erected on a platform was Moai Paro on the Te Pitokura platform, 11.5 m tall; it was reportedly the only moai still standing on the entire coast around 1838 and broke apart after toppling in the 1840s.
- All moai standing today were restored and raised by archaeologists in the 20th century.
- European navigators' reports from the 17th to 19th centuries describe internecine clan wars in which warring groups toppled statues from rivals' platforms.
- In 1982 American archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, founder of the Easter Island Statue Project, and a team documented 1,043 statues on Easter Island and elsewhere; 12 statues were removed to museums in various countries.
Sources
eisp.org
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journals.plos.org
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nature.com
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stamps.gov.pn
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The Crater where the Moai Were Madeartsandculture.google.com
Rano Raraku is a volcanic crater on the southeastern coast of the island where most of the moai were made during the 12th to 15th centuries. Easter Island by ...
Rano Rarakuen.wikipedia.org
It was a quarry for about 500 years until the early eighteenth century, and supplied the stone from which about 95% of the island's known monolithic sculptures ...
Rano Raraku, moai statue quarryeasterisland.travel
Rano Raraku is the legendary moai quarry with hundreds of abandoned statues scattered around. where roughly 95% of moai were carved from soft tuff—hundreds … ...
Rano Raraku Quarry Stock Photosgettyimages.com
famous quarry where the moais were carved on easter island. Rano Raraku is a volcanic crater formed of consolidated volcanic ash and located on the slopes
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