The Moai statues of Easter Island are a key part of ... These statues, often called “Easter Island heads,” actually have full bodies, many hidden under the soil. At the famous quarry of ...

Others stand upright with their head and shoulders above ground while their bodies remain buried ... spectacular sites on ...

Easter Island is home to approximately 1,000 large stone heads, known as Moai, scattered across the ... most amazing places on planet Earth that I have been to. It is riddled with mystery ...

with a concentration on Easter Island's southeast coast. Here, the moai are more 'standardized' in design, and are believed to have been carved, transported, and erected between AD 1400 and 1600.

Among the many secrets buried in Easter ... or moai, from their quarries to their final ceremonial ahu sites around the island. In many cases, the optimum route of transport would have meant ...

Archaeologist and Easter Island expert Jo Anne Van Tilburg believes the moai were built to honor ancestors and chieftains, or for ritual use to commune with gods, she told PBS. National Geographic ...

Hancock estimates that the statues on Easter Island, known as Moai heads, are likely much older ... statues on surrounding Pacific Islands have similar poses. "[Easter Island] is one of the ...

There is no place in the world like Easter ... have long been fascinated by the hundreds of massive moai, monolithic statues carved from volcanic rocks that are found across the island.

This story appears in the July 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine. On a winter night last June, José Antonio Tuki, a 30-year-old artist on Easter Island, did one of the things he loves ...