The Moai Timeline in Rano Raraku

The Moai Timeline in Rano Raraku

Rano Raraku: A volcanic crater formed by hardened volcanic ash, or tuff, located on the lower slopes of Te Rewaka in Rapa Nui National Park on Easter Island in Chile. It was once a quarry but is now known to have been growing on the island for at least 30,001 years. It weighs an estimated 270 tons, many times more than the weight of the statues that were transported. Some of the unfinished moai appear to have been abandoned after the sculptors found hard rock mixed in with the material. Others may be sculptures that were never intended to be separated from the stone from which they were carved. The rocks lasted for about 500 years until the early 18th century and are the source of the stone from which the island's Monolithic sculptures were carved. Rano Raraku is a visual record of the Moai design vocabulary and technological innovations. Of the 887 moai that survive Rano Raraku is in the Rapa Nui National Park World Heritage Site. 

The Rano Raraku crater is high and steep except in the north and northwest where it is much lower and has a gentle slope. It contains one of the island's three freshwater crater lakes surrounded by nga'atu or totora reeds. These plants were once thought to be evidence of contact with the South American mainland, and were used by the Rapa Nui people as shelter and swimming aids. The unfinished statues in the quarry are remarkable for their number as some of the statues high on the outer crater walls are inaccessible and the largest is 21.6 meters high almost twice as high as the finished Moai.

Leading the first legally authorized moai excavation at Rano Raraku since 1955 renowned Rapa Nui artist Cristián Arévalo Pakarati is the project’s co-director. The community at large believes the statues could have provided agricultural fertility and served as an important food source according to a new study by Jo Anne Van Tilburg director of the Easter Island Statues Project recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. Van Tilburg’s latest analysis focused on two stone pillars located in the inner part of the Rano Raraku quarry which is where 95 percent of the island’s more than 1,000 moai are found. 

Detailed laboratory testing of soil samples from the same area found evidence of food. “Our analysis shows that in addition to serving as a quarry and a place for carving statues Rano Raraku was also home to productive agricultural land ” Van Tilburg said. “Our excavation broadens our view of the moai and reminds us that nothing is quite like what it seems. Ancient Rapa Nui carvers worked at the behest of a ruling elite to carve nearly 1,000 moai.” The Rapa Nui were the ones who built these statues. The further away from the Rano Raragu statue quarry and the higher the destination the more common belief that the Moai were built by aliens is based on a number of legends. 

The statues were toppled in tribal wars to humiliate their enemies. The reason for this is that most of the statues fell forward face down when the first European ships arrived on Easter Island in 1722. All of the statues that were once seen are still standing. There is also a legend about a woman named Nuahine Pīkea 'Uri who with the power of Mana, caused the statues to fall in anger when her four children left food for her. Some elders on Easter Island still believe this to be true. Later visitors reported that more statues had fallen over over time and by the end of the 19th century not a single statue was still standing. The most common theory about this is that