The surprising truth about Easter Island’s iconic statues. For centuries, the monolithic statues of Easter Island have stood watch, their enigmatic faces gazing out upon the Pacific. But despite their familiarity, these ancient sentinels hold a secret: they have bodies. Yes, you read that right – beneath the earth, the iconic moai statues have hidden forms, waiting to be uncovered.
For years, researchers and excavators have worked to reveal the truth about these mysterious figures. And what they’ve found is nothing short of remarkable. Let’s dig deeper and uncover the fascinating story behind Easter Island’s statues and their buried bodies.
As early as 1914, archaeologists on Easter Island discovered that the heads of at least some of the megalithic statues, traditionally called moai, were attached to subterranean torsos, covered up over many centuries by erosion.
But that information remained largely hidden from the public until 2012 when a chain email containing images of full-bodied Easter Island statues taken from excavations in the 1950s and 2010s began circulating.
“The reason people think they are [only] heads is there are about 150 statues buried up to the shoulders on the slope of a volcano, and these are the most famous, most beautiful, and most photographed of all the Easter Island statues,” director of the Easter Island Statue Project, Jo Anne Van Tilburg, told Live Science.
“This suggested to people who had not seen photos of [other unearthed statues on the island] that they are heads only.”
Who built them?
At the latest count on the island, there are 1,043 complete moai. Enormous statues with prominent heads made from volcanic stone. Contrary to popular belief, they aren’t just heads—they have torsos too, though many are partially or completely buried. On average, they reach 13 feet in height and weigh 10 metric tons.
Most of the statues stand with their backs to the sea on stone platforms called ahu, which hold up to 15 statues. Some moai are adorned with cylindrical red stones called pukao on their heads, which represents a topknot of hair.
But the true number of moai on the island is unknown because many remain buried in the Rano Raraku quarry on the island’s south shore, where the statues were built. The largest discovered moai, named “El Gigante,” is one that never made it out of Rano Raraku. It is 69 feet tall and is thought to weigh about 200 metric tons.
These statues were erected hundreds of years before the first Europeans arrived on the island on Easter Sunday 1722. Van Tilburg believes Polynesians discovered the island around A.D. 1000. And developed advanced social, political, and religious systems that produced the noble moai.
Why were the statues built?
The Rapa Nui people believed that their chiefs were descended from the gods and that after death they would once again become divine. The statues were built to temporarily contain the spirits of their ancestors. The ahu upon which they stand were once the sites of death rituals. And excavations have found human remains, both cremated and buried, at some sites.
“It is my personal theory [that the moai] are containers into which these moving spirits can be captured and held safe. This is done so that they can continue to aid people that were left behind,” Van Tilburg says.
There’s a clear connection between the Rapa Nui’s moai and similar monoliths found around Polynesia. Experts believe these statues came from a common religion—even if they don’t always look alike.
“Containers in Hawaii, for example, are quite fierce. Their faces are twisted and turned with anger,” Van Tilburg says.“It’s only the Rapa Nui sculpture that says to us, it’s 100 percent human.”
Today, they are still considered sacred—touching the moai is illegal—and a source of spiritual life force, or mana.
How are humans affecting the moai?
The vast majority of moai line the island’s coast, which is immediately vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by climate change and coastal erosion. The Rapa Nui predicted this centuries ago and built sea walls. Some of which are crumbling and require reinforcement, Van Tilburg says.
Van Tilburg says the Rapa Nui people have traditionally been in charge of that upkeep. “It was the responsibility of the group to do things on a seasonal basis that protected their sites—they were supposed to weed them before ceremonies, they were supposed to mend the wall.”
But in recent years it’s been difficult to scrape together the financial support for such repairs. Particularly amid debates over jurisdiction between local communities, private families, and the Chilean government.
What happened to the people who built the moai?
The island’s plentiful resources were quickly depleted as the population grew. By the time the first Europeans came to the island in the 1700s, the island was deforested, likely to make space for crops. Without trees, the people tried to adapt: evidence shows there were isolated efforts to reforest the island, Van Tilburg says.
The Rapa Nui also migrated within the island, both inland and to the coast. Inland, farmers created advanced systems for crops like taro and sweet potato. And, it protected them from high winds, temperature fluctuations, and rapid evaporation, according to archeologist Mara Mulrooney, who studies Rapa Nui land usage.
But colonization, slave trading, and several epidemics took their toll. By 1877, the island’s population dwindled to as little as 111. The population has rebounded, with an estimated 2,000 native people living there today in a population of about 7,000. But threats to the island itself remain.
