Picture a place 2,000 miles off Chile’s coast, only 14 miles long. Yet, it’s home to about 1,000 giant moai statues. Some are almost 30 feet tall and weigh up to 80 tons. This is Easter Island ...

Researching which moai statues to visit on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in Chile can be overwhelming. I speak from experience, ...

Visiting Easter Island requires a six-hour flight from Santiago, Chile. Only one airline ... The island is famous for its enormous stone statues known as moai. The statues, which are carved ...

The ancient statues known as moai are everyday sights on Easter Island, or Rapa Nui—native dancers in body paint, less so. Some 2,000 Rapanui live on the island, which belongs to Chile.

Archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg, who has studied the moai for many years, believes the statues may have been created in the image of various paramount chiefs. They were not individualized ...

Rapa Nui is part of Chile, although the island ... Rapa Nui’s early inhabitants quarried the moai from this volcanic hillside and transported the statues to their destinations.

Among the many secrets buried in Easter Island prehistory is the question of how the Rapanui people transported the multi-ton statues, or moai, from their quarries to their final ceremonial ahu ...