Easter Island Monoliths

The humanoid heads of Easter Island, or moai, are thought to represent the deceased heads of lineages on the Island and may have taken half a dozen men a year to complete. Last year (2011), a message reached the world which changed the public's perception of these monoliths: the heads have bodies.

^ These statues are made from condensed volcanic ash,
or tuff, and were carved using only stone hand chisels

Volcanic ash from the extinct volcano Rano Raraku solidified and compressed to form tuff, a maleable rock. This tuff would have been repeatedly wetted and sculpted for as long as a year to make these incredible moai. The results of this back-breaking work were then transported around the island and positioned on stone platforms called ahu at the edges of the island, so that the faces looked over their clan's land.

The sheer time and effort it took for men to build and then transport these monoliths (see image) around their island is immense, and pays tribute to the dedication seen in almost all cultures around the world that man seems to have for his ancestors.

The most beautiful of these statues were extensively photographed and became the image which springs to mind upon the hearing of 'Easter Island'. However, over 500 years of erosion buried these iconic monoliths to their chins and so the word that the 'heads' have bodies amazed the world. In actuality, this fact has been known to archaeologists since around 1914, who studied intact monoliths inside the tuff quarry, even naming the largest of them 'Paro', which boasts a 33ft height and 82 tonne weight.

The real news regarding these immense works of ancient art is the study of the carvings, preserved by their burial, on the bodies, which are to be documented for the first time this year (2012).

For more information on the Easter Island monoliths:

http://www.livescience.com/20580-easter-island-heads-bodies.html
(information on the 'discovery' of monolithic bodies)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moai
(general reading)