Easter Island’s Moai Statues are tattooed

Moai statues ©-EISP.ORG-2012

The Easter Island Statues Project - website here, led by Jo Anne Van Tilburg (UCLA) and Cristián Arévalo Pakarati started about 20 years ago and aimed (among others) to excavate the Moai statues in order to study them in finer details.

Going through their website, I learnt that the Moai Statues are actually more impressive than I thought.

First, they wear some kind of hats made out of several tons rocks, set up in perfect balance on the top of their heads - how were these hats lifted up there is an unanswered nd very interesting question.

Another characteristic is that the surface of their body is somewhat tattooed, decorated with complex and refined petroglyphs - sort of body art with sacred symbols.

In April 2021 the Project Directors gave a conference about the outcomes of their twenty years of research - titled Ritualized Stone and Public Art on Easter Island - accessible online here.

Drawing of dorsal petroglyphs©-EISP.ORG-2012

Moai statue with dorsal petroglyphs ©-EISP.ORG-2012