CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1



HUNDREDS OF STATUES LAY UNFINISHED IN THE QUARRIES
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

   About 230 statues were actually moved from the quarries to platforms along the coast six or more miles away. Platforms held up to 15 statues in a row that were 6 to 33 feet tall with the largest ones weighing up to 82 tons. There are 394 statues still attached in the quarry at every stage of manufacture. They lay in all angles and heights on the rock face. Another 200 or more were left on the ancient roads between the quarry and the coast as if everything came to a halt all of a sudden.

 


CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGE IMAGE
A NICELY CARVED STATUE STILL LAYING IN THE QUARRY
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

    Ancestor worship was quite common in one form or another within prehistoric cultures around the world.  It has been suggested that these statues were ancestor figures. They are carved in a human form with very angular eyes, noses and chins and some have elongated ears with ear spools. The bodies have no legs and end at the abdomen. Arms are carved down the sides with long fingers that meet across the lower body in what has been described as a stylized loin cloth.

 


CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGE IMAGE
BURIED STATUES NEAR THE QUARRY SITE
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

   Large numbers of statues lay partially buried not far from the quarry where they were made. The soil has accumulated around them from 500 years of wind blown particles of rock and dirt raining down from the heights above.

 


CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGE IMAGE
TOP KNOTS CALLED "HA'U MOAI" WERE PLACED ON STATUES
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

   Approximately 58 top knots once rested on top of statues. This added embellishment may have began late in the statue building phase. They were made of red scoria quarried from Puna Pau located several miles southeast of the statue quarry Rano Raraku. Some had intricate carving on them with notches cut into the bottom that fit onto the top of a statue as the example in this picture shows. Some of these top knots measure up to 6 feet high and 7 feet in diameter with an estimated weight of 11 tons!

 


TOP KNOTS CALLED "HA'U MOAI" LAYING NEAR THE QUARRY SITE
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

  About 25 more top knots still lay in or near the quarry where they were carved.

 


CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGE IMAGE
A RESTORED STATUE WITH ITS ORIGINAL TOP KNOT
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

  This statue was restored to its original platform ("ahu") with a top knot.

 


CLICK ON PICTURES FOR LARGE IMAGE
EASTER ISLANDERS WERE SKILLED STONE MASONS
PLATFORM STONES WERE FITTED TIGHTLY TOGETHER

EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

   Some of the stone platforms became quite large during the later phase of statue building. They were as large as 500 feet long and 10 feet high. Stones used in their construction weigh as much as 10 tons.
   All of the energy expended during the second phase for monument building would have taken a fairly large number of people. The peak population estimates occur between A.D. 1200 to 1500. Different sources have figured the number somewhere between 7,000 to 20,000 people. But it seems likely that the number never reach more than 10,000. Which was too many for an island of this size and available resources.

FINAL PHASE
STATUE BUILDING ENDS
FIGHTING AND THE BIRDMAN CULT BEGINS
A.D. 1500---


STATUES LONG AGO PUSHED OFF THEIR PLATFORMS
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

   When the island's ecosystem changed so much that it became difficult to obtain food and materials to construct platforms & setup statues the people developed a new religion.

 


CLICK ON PICTURE FOR LARGE IMAGE
THE BIRDMAN CULT---THE BEGINNING OF THE END
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

   This period marks the beginning of a very sad future for the Easter Islanders. Ancestor worship ends and is replaced by a religion featuring a warrior elite. This picture shows one of the many squatting birdman petroglyphs carved on boulders. It's a logo of sorts that symbolizes the new direction the culture has taken.


FORTIFIED STONE CHICKEN HOUSE
EASTER ISLAND
PICTURE CREDIT GEORGE FRISON

   For most of Easter Island's history the sole domestic animal was the chicken. During the final phase they became the most valuable source of protein and were very valuable. This picture shows one of the surviving fortified stone chicken houses on the island.
   By 1500 the people on Easter Island had killed off every species of land bird and over half of the islands seabird species. The shellfish had become overexploited and trees were no longer available to build canoes large enough to hunt porpoise and this food source abruptly disappears from their diet. It seems inevitable at this point that they would turn to humans as a food source and this is what the archaeological record shows. Human bones become quite common in the late Easter Island garbage heaps. Oral tradition mentions an inflammatory taunt that suggests a time of cannibalism "the flesh of your mother sticks between my teeth"!

CONTINUE ON TO PAGE THREE

HOME    ORDERING