Moai, or mo‘ai

Moai, or mo‘ai, are monolithic human figures carved by the Rapa Nui people on Easter Island in eastern Polynesia between the years 1250 and 1500. Musée du cinquantenaire (Brussels, Belgium). Made with CapturingReality.

Nearly half are still at Rano Raraku, the main moai quarry, but hundreds were transported from there and set on stone platforms called ahu around the island’s perimeter.The tallest moai erected, called Paro, was almost 10 metres (33 ft) high and weighed 82 tonnes (90.4 tons).[8][9] The heaviest moai erected was a shorter but squatter moai at Ahu Tongariki, weighing 86 tonnes. One unfinished sculpture, if completed, would have been approximately 21 m (69 ft) tall, with a weight of about 270 tonnes. The moai were toppled in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, possibly as a result of European contact or internecine tribal wars.

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