Easter Island Moai

I supposed “an Easter Island head” would have been good enough, but you deserve to know that the heads are called “Moai.” That in itself is deceptive as they aren’t heads at all but full bodies representing previous chiefs, which is why each looks different. Back when the Europeans first came across them in 1722 all the Moai were standing and the people were seen praying to some. By the end of the 1800’s all of the Moai had been knocked over. Yeay Christianity. They were made out of volcanic rock and carved with stone tools, and thought to have been “walked” into position- tilting and pushing forward or moved by rollers. Of course, those who don’t or won’t understand physics attribute their placement to aliens. Probably decedents of those who knocked them over in the first place.

While the originals are about 10M (30 ft) tall and 50-80 tons, mine is about a foot tall and made of sandstone. Unfortunately the sandstone doesn’t allow for fine details of the carvings found on the statues, the sandstone does mimic the roughness of volcanic stone. The Moai this one was modeled after has duck-like birds on his back and oddly enough appears to be holding a dog in his right hand. The dog was omitted. 4 out of 5 because of the inability to include all those cool details.