Easter Island, or Rapa Nui, is best known for its impressive stone statues and carved stone architectural ruins. Mastery of stone carving techniques on Easter Island far surpassed such activity elsewhere in the Pacific Islands.  The magnitude of construction efforts and the skill and precision of shaping and moving individual stones is certainly one of the most striking features of the island's remarkable prehistoric culture.

Stone Images

The island's stone statues are well known, but the context in which these  images were used is less commonly understood.  Popular misconceptions exist about the statues: that they are merely heads sticking out of the ground and that they represent isolated pieces of art with no site context.  It is relatively easy to show that the images are busts typically extending to the waist rather than being just heads.  It is more difficult to explain the significance of the statues within the settings where they were used and within the broader cultural and societal context in the early Easter Island landscape. However, such an explanation is critical to appreciating the images' original meanings.  An analysis of statues in specific archaeological contextis required.  Statues are found in all parts of the island and in all kinds of locations; the major site contexts are represented by the quarries where the statues were carved, the various images in transport, and the stone platforms, ahu, that held  images used in ritual functions. The ahu are considered equivalent to East Polynesian marae.

Stone Altars

The critical interpretative context for understanding the meaning of the prehistoric Easter Island images is that of the ahu, the stone platform and connected courtyard designed for religious ritual. Because of the overwhelming physical presence of the statues, the ahu platforms on which the images stood often go unnoticed because the ahu courts, especially, are architecturally unelaborated and may be unmarked by identifiable boundaries.  Ahu platforms are also often low and are covered with unshaped stones, especially in their present ruined states.  Yet, it is precisely these platforms and associated architectural features that provide us with the means to interpret the statues and the broader significance of stone architecture on Easter Island.  Meaning comes from context and the meaning of the images in prehistoric Easter Island culture can be reconstructed only from archaeological context.  The contexts of greatest significance for understanding the likely diverse meanings are the locations where the statues were actually used.  These contexts were at the ahu which have multiple architectural and other features providing a wealth of detail about ritual activities that are fundamentally tied to the stone statues.

The Tahai Restoration Project

Research by William Mulloy, Gonzalo Figueroa G.-H. and myself at the Tahai complex on the island's west coast in 1968-70 represents the third major ahu excavation project undertaken on Rapa Nui (Mulloy 1968, Ayres 1971, 1981,1988, n.d.). Our co-workers included GermanHotu C., Juan Haoa H., Andres Haoa H., Felipe Teao A., Jacobo RirorokoT., Jorge Nahoe P., Martin Rapu, Rafael Rapu H., Jose Fati P., Juan ChavezM., Jorge Hotu C., Regino Tuki H.,  Simon Haoa P, and Mario ArevaloP.

This project attempted to resolve some basic issues about architectural evolution.  At Tahai three large structures were restored and the underlying ahu unit at Ahu Tahai was determined to be the earliest one actually dated thus far.  Thus, this site offers much for understanding patterns of architectural evolution.  Of equal significance are various structural contexts at the ahu complex which help us identify rituals practiced there that relate to the meaning of the stone images. 

The Tahai research centered on a complex of three ahu, Ko te Ahu o te Vaka Ariki (Site EI8-1), commonly referred to as Ahu Ko te Riku), Ko te Ahu o te Nga'ara Ariki (Site EI8-2, here identifiedas Ahu Tahai), and Ahu Vai Uri (Site EI8-3); all of these have been restored. 

The Tahai complex covers nearly 20,000 squaremeters and approximately  23,000 cubic meters of rocks and earth, weighing at least 2,000 metric tons, were used as fill in constructing the three ahu.  The cluster of house foundations and other site remains located landward of the three ahu are indicative of the significant position the complex occupied in this section of the coast.