Between showers, we visited the ahu sites of Ahu Vaihu with its eight large moai all lying facedown, their topknots scattered nearby. Close by were the remains of a number of village huts and community facilities. These reminded me of a number of Viking village remains that we’d visited in Ireland.
Fortunately, we’d brought a simple packed lunch because there were no facilities once we had left the town of Hanga Roa. It did seem rather strange sitting in the car watching the rain showers one minute, then a few minutes later, it had cleared showing us the now rain soaked remains of the moai.
By the time that we’d arrived at the Nursery, Rano Raraku, the clouds were breaking up and patches of sunshine showed through the clouds. We parked our car, and guidebook and umbrella in hand, we walked up to the entrance checkpoint. We were pleased to see that the site was policed as we had been told that vandalism and souvenir hunting had become big business on the island.
The outer grass covered slopes of the dormant volcano, the clearing sky and the longer shadows cast by the mid-afternoon sun, provided a picture-perfect setting for the first moai that we came across on the lower slopes. These were dug into the ground with their heads and torsos sticking up. A closer look revealed that considerable degradation that had occurred over the centuries from wind, sun and rain.
Further up the slope we came to area where still partly hewn moai were attached to the rock base. This illustrated how the carving process had been done. Two parallel channels had been cut from the rock and starting from the head, the stone masons had shaped the body of the statue. Later, the “keel” as it is called, was cut through to release the figure from the rock. It was then slid down the slope to be dropped into a prepared pit so that the detailed work on the head, back and shoulders of the statues could be finished off. A number of the moai shown quite elaborate carvings on their back.
