Rapa Nui

Rapa Nui is a remote volcanic island in the southeastern Pacific, settled by Polynesian voyagers centuries before European contact. Its people carved monumental stone figures, or moai, from the volcanic tuff of Rano Raraku and raised them on ceremonial platforms called ahu. Villages, gardens and ritual sites formed a distinctive island landscape.

On Easter Sunday 1722 the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen reached the island, giving it the European name Easter Island. Spanish visitors followed in 1770, and James Cook came in 1774. Cook’s party observed that some statues had fallen, while others remained standing. Ritual life also included the tangata manu, or birdman, competition associated with Orongo and offshore islets. These traditions reveal a society whose history continued to change after the great statues had been carved.