The imposing statues that line the coast of Easter Island have been an enigma ... the iconic figures were dedicated to the island’s chiefs, no one could figure out why they were constructed ...

According to archaeologist Jo Anne Van Tilburg—who is the founder of UCLA's Easter Island Statue Project and has studied the artifacts for nearly 30 years—about 95 percent of the statues were ...

In their isolation, why did the early Easter Islanders undertake this colossal statue-building effort? Unfortunately, there is no written record ... punctuate Easter Island's barren landscape.

In a remote patch of the Pacific Ocean lies Rapa Nui, otherwise known as Easter ... the island has been the subject of intrigue. Who built the Moai? How did they move such huge statues without ...

“The island is planted with monstrous great statues, the work of I don’t know what race, today degenerate or vanished; its great remains an enigma.” Named Easter ... has been no end of ...

On a winter night last June, José Antonio Tuki, a 30-year-old artist on Easter Island ... raised statues rather than children. What’s more, moving the moai required few people and no wood ...

It's Rapa Nui - Easter ... island, effectively organised, practising religion in a carefully structured, competitive way, and then, quite suddenly, around 1600, the monolith-making stopped. No ...