The iconic Easter Island rocks are well known throughout the world. What many people did not know until now, however, is that the heads of the statues also have bodies which up till now have been buried by successive deposits of material on the island. Archaeologists recently uncovered the bodies associated with the heads and made further interesting discoveries about the Easter Island civilization that produced the monolithic objects.
The carved heads on Easter Island (which is located in the tropical South Pacific west of Chile) are known as ‘Moai’ by the Rapa Nui people that carved them between 1100 and 1500 AD. With the passage of time the statues were buried by sediment and rocks and this hid the torsos of the statues. A team of archaeologists from UCLA have recently undertaken a project to better study the artefacts and help preserve them. During this project the team excavated several heads to reveal the body hidden beneath the soil. The team has documented and studied almost 1000 statues over a period of 9 years in a bid to understand the meaning, function and history of each individual statue on the island.
After receiving approval the archaeologists excavated two statues to reveal their torsos and a truncated waist. Successive mass transport deposits have buried the statues lower parts as the island naturally weathered and eroded over the centuries. The island itself was formed by successive volcanic flows that consisted of basalt and adesite. Volcanic tuffs were deposited in the volcanic crater (where the island is located) which formed the Easter Island rocks that were used to carve the statues.
During the excavation the archaeologists also discovered etched petroglyphs on the backs of the statues. One of these was in the form of a crescent shape that is typically used to represent a canoe and is likely to be the motif used by a specific family group. This is a clue that the statues were created by different familial and group structures on the island for religious and cultural reasons. In addition, there was a great deal of red pigment found in areas adjacent to the statues which suggests that they may have been painted red during ceremonies and other significant events. There are also a large number of burial sites that surround the statues which suggests that family groups buried their dead members in proximity to their family group’s statue.
