Case file · Sacred site
Rapa Nui (Easter Island moai)
Nearly 900 monolithic ancestor figures carved by the Rapa Nui people.
1250 CE · -27.12, -109.29 · status: documented
The account
The moai, set on ceremonial ahu platforms, embodied deified ancestors; moving them shaped the island's history and ecology.
Connections in the atlas
- Last birdman contest at Orongo
- Thor Heyerdahl
- Rongorongo tablets found
- Heyerdahl's Rapa Nui expedition
- The moai that 'walked'