Big Rocks of Human Figures

An aircraft brought a cameraman towards the shore of this island in the Pacific. This line of Big Rocks of Statues attracted each year many tourists over the world to marvel at the craftsmanship of the people here at Rapa Nui (拉帕努伊島).


Let us look at these rocks:

These monolithic human figures carved from rock on the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island 復活節島) between 1250 and 1500 are called Moai (摩艾). Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island's perimeter. Almost all moai have overly large heads three-fifths the size of their bodies. The moai are chiefly the 'living faces' of deified ancestors. The statues still gazed inland across their clan lands when Europeans first visited the island, but most would be cast down during later conflicts between clans.

The production and transportation of these statues are considered remarkably intellectual and creative. The tallest moai erected, called Paro, was almost 10 metres (33 ft) high and weighed 75 tonnes; the heaviest erected was a shorter but squatter moai at Ahu Tongariki, weighing 86 tons; and one unfinished sculpture, if completed, would have been approximately 21 metres (69 ft) tall with a weight of about 270 tons.