page_title: Moai
hierarchical_section_title: Moai
context_page_description: Moai are stone statues on Easter Island. Each moai is made out of one large stone but some have an extra stone on top of the head. Most were made from the volcanic rock in the Rano Raraku area of the island. Moai are sometimes called "heads" but they do have shoulders, arms, and a body but these are usually too small for the head, also some of the best known ones had been partly buried over the years and only the heads were showing. Most moai are between 2.5 and 10 metres high and, usually, weigh 14 tonnes. There are about 1000 moai placed mainly around the coast of the island plus nearly 400 more which were left not yet finished at Rano Raraku.
  When, why, and how they were made is still a mystery today. It is believed that they were made almost 1000 years ago by Polynesians, who lived there at the time and were made to honour their ancestors and bring good luck. Making the statues would have needed a lot of time and effort. To move them, they may have used wooden sledges or rollers or even "walked" them by rocking the moai along. The youngest moai found was built around 1350.
context_section_description: Moai are stone statues on Easter Island. Each moai is made out of one large stone but some have an extra stone on top of the head. Most were made from the volcanic rock in the Rano Raraku area of the island. Moai are sometimes called "heads" but they do have shoulders, arms, and a body but these are usually too small for the head, also some of the best known ones had been partly buried over the years and only the heads were showing. Most moai are between 2.5 and 10 metres high and, usually, weigh 14 tonnes. There are about 1000 moai placed mainly around the coast of the island plus nearly 400 more which were left not yet finished at Rano Raraku.
  When, why, and how they were made is still a mystery today. It is believed that they were made almost 1000 years ago by Polynesians, who lived there at the time and were made to honour their ancestors (older family members long dead) and bring good luck. Making the statues would have needed a lot of time and effort. To move them, they may have used wooden sledges or rollers or even "walked" them by rocking the moai along. The youngest moai found was built around 1350. It is believed that, around that time, there began a time of cold weather, little food, and war between the peoples. By the 19th century, all the moai had been pushed over. Today, some have been restored.123
caption: Seven moai at Ahu Akivi
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot G3", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2005:03:26 19:50:29", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "184", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "160", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "88", "Thumbnail BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Thumbnail Compression": "Uncompressed", "Thumbnail PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Thumbnail StripOffsets": "1729", "Thumbnail SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Thumbnail RowsPerStrip": "88", "Thumbnail StripByteCounts": "42240", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail PlanarConfiguration": "1", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2003:11:18 17:35:53", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2003:11:18 17:35:53", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "245/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "95/32", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "331/16", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2272", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1249", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "2272", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "1704", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1486", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "56800/7", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}