Statues of Rapa Nui Trivia Quiz

Answer: Easter Island

Easter Island is aptly named this because it was discovered on Easter Sunday, 1722 by the Dutch explorer Jakob Roggeveen. Captain Cook also visited the island in 1774 hoping to find plenty of food and water, but there was little of either. It is the most remote place on earth - it is 1,400 miles away from the nearest inhabitable place and over 2,300 miles away from the closest continent - South America.

Answer: Statue

The moai of Rapa Nui are almost instantly recognized as such because of their uniqueness. We only see them from the waist up, although they are whole in most cases and the rest of them is buried in the ground, while most attention to the detail of the carvings was given to the head.

The full name of the statue is Moai Aringa Ora which means "living face of the ancestors." They represent important rulers and ancestors who after they died protected the tribe with their spiritual power (mana). They are placed looking inland and not towards the ocean because they are thought to be watching over their people.

The seven moai in the Ahu Akivi are the only ones that face out to sea and help travelers find the island.

Answer: Ahu

The word "ahu" means both the stone pedestal or base on which the statue stands and the sacred site on which several statues stand. Rapa Nui has an estimated number of more than 300 ahus, some of them with statues standing on them and some of them empty, just piles of stacked fitted stones.

The largest ahu on the island is the "Ahu Tongariki" with fifteen standing moai. The moai were all toppled during the island's civil war and were restored in the 1990s through a five-year government project.

Answer: Topknot

All the statues were placed on ceremonial rings circling the outside of the island and looking inwards. The topknot, which was shaped like a drum and added to the statue's head, was made of red scoria stone from another quarry in Puna Pau. As indicated in Rapa Nui mythology, the divine power, the "mana," was preserved in the hair and the leaders and chieftains did not cut their hair but twisted it in a topknot. Apart from the "pukao" the statues also had inlaid eyes made out of coral and red scoria stone for the pupils.

Answer: Paro

Paro, weighing around 80 tons, is the largest completed moai but not the largest project attempted by the Rapa Nuians. In their ancient quarry lies another uncompleted statue named "El Gigante" which would have weighed 270 tons and been 66 feet tall if it had been finished. Paro was 33 feet tall, and it was standing in the Ahu de Pito Kura on the North Coast of the island.

It is now lying on the ground on its face, split in two pieces and its huge topknot made out of red stone lies right in front of it.

Answer: Volcano

Almost all of the statues of Rapa Nui were carved from the porous volcanic tuff, a porous stone made of solidified ash, in the crater of an extinct volcano which scientists believe built the island. The statues were carved out of the volcanic tuff with basalt picks and then a team of 10-12 women would start adding the details.

It would have taken approximately one year for one statue to be finished. Out of the 900 statues carved in Rano Raraku, almost 400 of them are still found at the quarry in various stages of construction.

Answer: Erich von Daniken

In 1968, Swiss author Erich von Daniken wrote the book "Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past" in which he hypothesized that most of the monumental and technologically advanced accomplishments of ancient civilizations were achieved with knowledge learned from an extraterrestrial race. According to him, the Nazca Lines were alien airstrips, Japanese statues depicted alien astronauts and the Egyptian Pyramids, Stonehenge, and the Moai of Rapa Nui were only made possible with extraterrestrial technology.

The book was discredited by the mainstream scientific community but it, nonetheless, sold more than 70 million copies to this day and was translated into more than 25 languages.

Answer: Makemake

Makemake was the god of fertility, creator of humanity and chief god of the bird-man sect in the Rapa Nui mythology. On the petroglyphs he is depicted as a skull with large ocular sockets and a phallic nose and he is usually accompanied by a few bird-men. Makemake was the leader of the "Tanga manu," the traditional festival where the islanders competed in collecting the first egg of the sooty tern bird on the remote islet of Motu Nui.

The winner was revered for a whole year and his family was endowed with gifts, benefits and a higher social status.

Answer: Wood

The wooden moai kavakava ("image with ribs" in the native language) of Rapa Nui was originally carved out of a now almost extinct "toro miro" dense dark brown wood. The figurines had a stooping posture, protruding ribs, inlaid earplugs, and carved eyes. Most probably, they represented the spirits of the ancestors and were worn around the neck in harvest ceremonies and hung as amulets on the doors of the houses to scare away evil spirits.

Answer: No

Touching the moai is not permitted by law for two reasons and disobedience invokes a large fine which could reach up to 17,000 USD as was the case with one tourist. The first reason is that the moai embody the sacred ancestors, the lasting legacy of the Rapa Nuian culture and history.

The second reason is that the statues are extremely sensitive to weather conditions, and they deteriorate rapidly from wind and rain. As of 2022, a devastating fire caused "irreparable" damage to the statues which have begun to lose their engravings. Touching them would only speed up the deterioration process.