Moai, also spelled moꞌai (pronounced MOH-eye), are large stone statues created by the Rapa Nui people on Rapa Nui, known as Easter Island, between 1250 and 1500. Most of these statues were carved from stone at Rano Raraku, the main quarry, but many were moved to stone platforms called ahu around the island. Nearly all moai have very large heads, which make up three-eighths of their total height, and they do not have legs. These statues represent the faces of ancestors who were considered gods. In addition to the large stone statues, the Rapa Nui also made smaller wooden statues, including moꞌai kavakava (male), moꞌai paepae or papa (female), and moꞌai taŋata (male).
When Europeans first visited the island in 1722, the statues still stood facing inland toward the lands of their clans. However, by the late 1800s, all the statues had fallen. They were likely knocked over during wars between groups on the island or because of contact with Europeans in the late 1700s and early 1800s.
Creating and moving more than 900 statues is seen as an amazing achievement. The tallest statue, called Paro, was almost 10 meters (33 feet) tall and weighed 82 tonnes (81 long tons; 90 short tons). The heaviest statue, which was shorter and wider, was at Ahu Tongariki and weighed 86 tonnes (85 long tons; 95 short tons). One unfinished statue, if completed, would have been about 21 meters (69 feet) tall and weighed 145–165 tonnes (143–162 long tons; 160–182 short tons). Statues continue to be found on the island as of 2023.
Description
The moai are large stone statues with simple designs that are similar to those found in other parts of Polynesia. These statues were carved from volcanic tuff, a type of rock made from hardened ash. Carvers first outlined human figures in the rock wall and then chipped away the surrounding material until only the image remained. The statues have large heads, which are three to five times the size of their bodies, a feature that reflects the Polynesian belief in the importance of the head. Their faces have thick eyebrows, long noses with a unique curved shape, thin lips, and long, oval-shaped ears. The necks are short, and the torsos are heavy. Sometimes, the collarbones are visible. The arms are carved in a way that makes them stand out slightly and are positioned in different ways, with hands resting on the hips or near the loincloth. The backs are usually not detailed, but some statues have patterns on the lower back and buttocks. Most moai do not have clearly visible legs, except for one statue that is kneeling.
Although moai are full-body statues, they are sometimes called "Easter Island heads" in some books. This is partly because their heads are much larger than their bodies and partly because many images of the statues show only their heads, as they are often found buried on the slopes of Rano Raraku. Some of these statues have been uncovered, revealing their full bodies and showing markings that were protected from weathering by being buried.
The average height of the moai is about 4 meters (13 feet), and their bases are about 1.6 meters (5.2 feet) wide. Each statue weighs around 12.5 tonnes (13.8 tons). Most of the more than 900 known moai were carved from tuff at Rano Raraku, where 394 statues in different stages of completion can still be seen. Other statues were made from basalt, trachyte, or fragile red scoria. After carving, the builders rubbed the statues with pumice to smooth their surfaces.
The moai have large, wide noses, prominent chins, rectangular ears, and deep eye slits. Their bodies are usually squatting, with arms in different positions, and they lack legs. Most of the platforms (ahu) where the moai stand are located along the coast and face inland toward the villages. Some platforms, like Ahu Akivi, are inland and face the sea.
In 1979, archaeologists discovered that the eye sockets were designed to hold coral eyes with pupils made of black obsidian or red scoria. This was found by collecting and reassembling broken pieces of white coral. Later, previously unsorted items in the Easter Island museum were identified as eye fragments. It is believed that statues with carved eye sockets were placed at ceremonial sites, suggesting that the Rapa Nui people had a special hierarchy for these statues until a new religious belief, the tangata manu, emerged.
Many archaeologists believe the moai represented ancestors and were symbols of power and authority. They were also considered to hold spiritual energy called mana. These statues were carved and prepared in rituals to make them sacred.
Archaeologists think the moai were built to watch over the people, facing inland toward the villages. The exception is the seven statues at Ahu Akivi, which face the sea to help travelers find the island. A legend says seven men waited for their king to arrive. A study in 2019 suggested that ancient people believed carving the moai might have improved soil fertility and food supplies.
Later moai had red stone caps called pukao on their heads, which represented the topknots of chieftains. Local tradition says mana was stored in the hair. The pukao were carved from red scoria, a lightweight rock from Puna Pau. Red is a sacred color in Polynesia, and the pukao added extra importance to the statues.
When first made, the moai were polished with pumice. However, the tuff used for most statues erodes easily, so the best place to see their details is on statues made from basalt or in old photographs and records of protected statues.
Some moai had designs carved on their backs and buttocks. In 1914, the Routledge expedition linked these designs to traditional tattooing, which had been banned by missionaries. This was important evidence that the moai were made by the Rapa Nui people and not by a different group from South America.
At least some moai were painted. One statue in the Metropolitan Museum of Art had a reddish color. Another statue, Hoa Hakananai'a, was painted with maroon and white until 1868, when it was taken to the British Museum in London. Some people now want it returned to Rapa Nui.
History
The statues were carved by the original Polynesian people of the island between the years 1250 and 1500. These statues, called moai, were placed on stone platforms called ahu. They represented the spirits of dead ancestors and may also have shown the power of living or past leaders, acting as symbols of family importance. The size of a statue on an ahu showed how much spiritual power, or "mana," the chief who paid for it had. People competed to build the largest statues, and evidence of this competition can be seen in the different sizes of the moai.
Completed statues were moved to ahu near the coast and sometimes placed on top of red stone cylinders called pukao. Making and moving the statues took a lot of time and effort. Carving each statue required resources, and then the finished statues had to be transported to their final locations and set up.
The quarries in Rano Raraku, where the statues were carved, were left suddenly. Tools and many unfinished statues were found there, along with completed ones waiting to be moved. In the 1800s, some people thought the island was part of a sunken continent and that most statues were underwater. This idea has been proven wrong. Today, it is not known exactly which groups of people carved the statues. Oral traditions say either a special class of carvers or members of each family group did the work. The quarry was divided into sections for each family.
When Europeans first arrived, the island had very few trees. This made it hard to understand how the statues were moved. Studies of soil and plant remains show that forests covered the island when people first settled there, but trees were cut down over time, especially between 800 and 1200 CE, and again before 1700.
New research has changed how people think about the statues. Scientists now use physical evidence, experiments, and studies of the land to test ideas instead of relying on old stories or guesses. These methods have helped compare different theories fairly. Studies of the environment and experiments with moving statues have given more information about how the ancient people lived.
It is still unclear exactly how the moai were moved, but many theories exist. Early ideas suggested people used ropes, wooden sleds, or rollers to move the statues along flat paths. Another idea is that statues were placed on logs and rolled to their destinations, which might have taken 50 to 150 people. Older theories said hundreds of people were needed, but recent studies suggest the statues were "walked" upright by tilting them side to side and pulling them forward with ropes.
Some researchers doubted the use of sleds or rollers because the island had few trees. Evidence of deforestation supports this idea. Modern scientists believe the statues were moved using ropes to control their rocking motion.
Stories from native people say statues were moved with the help of gods. One story says a king named Tuu Ku Ihu used the god Makemake to move them, and another says a woman on a mountain ordered the statues to move. Scientists now think the main method was rocking the statues upright. Moving a statue on a sledge, like the Easter Islanders did in the 1860s, would have needed about 1,500 people for the largest moai. In 1998, a researcher named Jo Anne Van Tilburg suggested fewer people could move a statue by using rollers. In 1999, she tested this by moving a nine-tonne statue with 60 people. The experiment succeeded after fixing the rollers.
In 1986, researchers tested moving a five-tonne and nine-tonne statue by rocking them with ropes. They used eight and 16 people, respectively, but the experiment stopped early because the statues were damaged. Thor Heyerdahl estimated this method could move a 20-tonne statue about 100 meters a day. Other scientists doubted this because of the damage to the statues.
Experiments show the islanders used creative methods to move the statues. No single method was used; instead, they adapted based on distance, resources, and the number of people available. These experiments show the people used practical solutions rather than magic or brute force.
Around the same time, an archaeologist named Charles Love tested moving a 10-tonne statue. His first attempt failed because rocking the statue was unstable over long distances. He later tried placing the statue on sled runners over log rollers and found 25 people could move it 46 meters in two minutes. In 2003, he suggested this method could explain post holes found near paths, which might have been used to push the statues up slopes.
Preservation and restoration
From 1955 to 1978, an American archaeologist named William Mulloy studied the creation, movement, and placement of the large stone statues on Easter Island. His projects on Rapa Nui included examining and restoring the Akivi-Vaiteka Complex and Ahu Akivi (1960); studying and repairing Ahu Ko Te Riku, Ahu Vai Uri, and the Tahai Ceremonial Complex (1970); investigating and restoring two ahu at Hanga Kio'e (1972); studying and repairing the ceremonial village at Orongo (1974); and conducting many other archaeological surveys across the island.
The Rapa Nui National Park and the moai statues were added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1995 after being included in the 1972 UN agreement to protect cultural and natural heritage.
Over the years, several groups have mapped the moai, including Father Sebastian Englert and Chilean researchers. The Easter Island Statue Project (EISP) studied and recorded many moai on Rapa Nui and artifacts in museums abroad. The project’s goal is to learn about the statues’ original purpose, setting, and meaning, sharing the findings with Rapa Nui families and local agencies responsible for protecting the moai. Other researchers who have studied the moai include Britton Shepardson, Terry L. Hunt, and Carl P. Lipo.
In 2008, a tourist from Finland damaged a moai by breaking off part of its ear. The tourist was fined $17,000 and banned from the island for three years.
In 2020, an empty truck crashed into a moai, breaking the statue and causing serious damage.
In 2022, a wildfire burned an area of about 150 to 250 acres in Rano Raraku, damaging an unknown number of moai. The mayor of Rapa Nui, Pedro Edmunds Paoa, said the fire was started on purpose. Some officials believe the damage to certain statues is permanent and cannot be fixed.
Unicode character
In 2010, the "moyai" emoji (🗿) was added to Unicode version 6.0 under the code point U+1F5FF. It was described as "a Japanese stone statue like Moai on Easter Island." The official name, "moyai," refers to a statue near Shibuya Station in Tokyo. This statue was a gift from the people of Nii-jima, an island 163 kilometers (101 miles) from Tokyo but part of the city. The statue was inspired by the moai statues of Easter Island. Its name combines "moai" with the Japanese word "moyai" (催合い), which means "helping each other."
Unicode included this emoji by adopting images originally used by Japanese mobile carriers in the 1990s. At first, different companies created varying designs, some showing a moai and others showing the moyai statue. Early versions from Google and Microsoft resembled the moyai statue, but later versions were changed to look more like moai.
Despite its original purpose, the emoji is now widely used online as a meme. It often represents a deadpan expression or is used to show sarcasm.