Ancient Ceremonial Sites

 

The day before we left Easter Island, we visited 2 restored ceremonial sites where the energy was just fabulous.  I suspect that there were ceremonies by the locals that were still taking place there, hence the elevated vibration. 

The first was Ahu Akivi.  This is a rare inland ahu where the 7 moai face westward towards the sea, instead of being located along the coast and facing away from the sea.  It was restored in 1960 as the first ahu to be restored in modern times.  It is considered to be a celestial observatory, the only one on the island. The ahu platform is oriented exactly north-south.  The fronts of the moai face the sunset of the spring equinox, and the backs face the autumn equinox sunrise.  The energy here was quite mellow, and our group lingered for quite a while.

Before lunch we stopped at Ahu Huri a ‘Urenga.  This is an inland ahu with a single moai on it.  The moai faces east-northeast, and faces the winter solstice sunrise.  It is the only moai whose head is tipped slightly upwards as if gazing at the rising of the Matariki star cluster, which is the Polynesian name for the Pleiades.  This also happens around the winter solstice.  It is an important astronomical and agricultural marker. 

It also features its original plaza in front of the ahu.  All of Easter Island’s ahus had plazas , but this is the only one that we visited that was in its original condition.

This site was featured in National Geographic Magazine several times in its numerous articles on Easter Island.

The interesting thing about this moai is that it has 2 pairs of hands, thus 20 fingers.  More about the hands in the next post!

The energy of these 2 ahus was so mellow and sublime that I was sure that ceremonies were still taking place there.  These would be by the local islanders with the government’s permission of course, as all of the ancient sites on the island are now part of a big national park. I felt that I could lay down in the grass and stay there all day.  

The "Stolen Friend"

 

In 1868, a British frigate named the HMS Topaze, commanded by Commodore Richard Powell, stopped at Easter Island.  While there, his crew dug up a partially buried solid basalt moai and took it back to England.  It was offered to Queen Victoria, who requested that it be put on display in the British Museum, where it still is today.  The Polynesian name for this moai is Hoa Hakananai’a, which means “stolen friend”.  The debate is still going on as to whether it should be returned to Easter Island or remain at the museum. 

We visited Orongo, which is the sacred ceremonial site from which the moai was removed.  It lies on a thin piece of land high on a bluff with a 1,000’ drop to the Pacific Ocean on one side, and a drop down into a volcanic crater lake on the other side.

The Birdman cult competitions took place here every year to choose the ruling clan for that year on the island. You can read about this fascinating practice here. This activity took the place of the moai culture which ceased to exist by about 1500.   By the time the British arrived, the population of the island was at a low point, and the Catholic missionaries had converted those who were left to Catholicism.  The Birdman competition was outlawed by the Catholic Church, and ended around 1866.  Thus when the British arrived, there was no one who could really prevent them from removing the moai. 

Orongo was restored from its ruinous state and there is a nice little visitor’s center there with all sorts of information on the ancient culture.  Here are some of the images of Hoa Hakananai‘a that are on display. 

We walked out of the visitor’s center and onto a path that took us past the many reconstructed houses that were used only during the Birdman ceremony.  Supposedly there were 54 houses, one for each clan.  Here is a photo of one that was restored and left open so one could see inside.  You can see that they are basically deeply cut into the earth with a stone roof on top. 

The Hoa Hakananai’a moai was taken from one of these, and then the house was demolished.  Our guide said that it was lying face down in the house when it was being worshiped before the competition. On its back were carvings representing the Birdman.  The British had to dig it out to be able to transport it. 

The heaviest concentration of rock art on Easter Island is also located in this area, with about 100 petroglyphs.  Clearly, this was a major ceremonial center. 

Many consider this moai the most important sacred artifact from the island.  However, I have a few questions.  Who carved it, and how did they get it up to this isolated place?  And when did this happen?  Robert Schoch says that it is a pre flood artifact, making it over 10,000 years old.  Notice the fine carving on the basalt.  Since basalt is the hardest stone on Easter Island, what did they use to carve it?  More basalt?  There are only 13 moai there carved from basalt, and are considered to be the oldest.  But how old? 

I asked our guide about where the basalt was sourced.  He said that there are some basalt outcroppings on the island.  Robert Schoch writes that if there was a basalt quarry, it has not been found.  He states that it may be under water off shore, which means that it was flooded at the end of the last Ice age.  

What a mysterious place!

The Quarry

 

One of the main highlights of the trip was a visit to the Rano Raraku quarry, where all of the moai on the island were carved.  BTW—there is still no definitive evidence on how those multi ton statues were transported to their final locations.  The rain of the previous days had ceased and we were left with a very windy and sunny day.  So windy that it was hard to hike some of the higher trails around the quarry for fear of getting blown over.

The quarry is made up of volcanic tuff, which is compressed volcanic ash.  It is much easier to carve than basalt, and the tools that carved the moai were made of hawaiite and basalt, the hardest volcanic stones to be found on the island.  Here you can see the outcropping of the volcanic tuff above the slope where the partially finished moai are embedded in the ground. 

Estimates are that a little over 400 moai are left there in incomplete stages of completion, most buried in the hillside.  That is about 45% of all moai on the island.  All moai were carved between 1250 and 1500 CE. 

During his time on the island in the ‘50’s, Thor Heyerdahl excavated this massive moai down to the bottom of the feet.  Up until that time, all of the ones in the quarry were thought to be only upper torsos or just heads.  Here is a photo from that excavation.  The moai is 37’ tall.

The moai was reburied.  Here it is now as we walked past it.  The darker green area in front is where the excavation pit was filled in.

In geologist Robert Schoch’s book, he writes that the layers of sediment would have taken a lot longer than estimated to build up to such a depth around the moai. Thus, he estimates that they are much older than believed.  Another mystery!

Here is a photo of the carvings on the back of an excavated moai.  They all probably had this, but the soft volcanic tuff on the exposed surfaces has mostly eroded away.

Here I am trying to keep from blowing away!

The Inca Wall

 

From 1955 to 1956, famed explorer Thor Heyerdahl lived on Easter Island doing archaeological research aiming to prove his theory that Peruvians from the east first colonized the island, with the Polynesians coming along later.  So that morning, our group set out for the archaeological site of Ahu Vinapu, where there is a famous back wall of the apu that resembles the stonework found in many places in Peru.  Heyerdahl felt that this reinforced his claim that ancient people from South America could reach Easter Island by boat. 

Here is the Ahu Vinapu wall, photos and a video.

Now a sampling of walls in and around Cusco Peru.

BTW—both Freddy Silva and Robert Schoch write about the seafaring cultures that sailed around the Pacific before the dramatic rise in sea level at the end of the last ice age, when all of the islands were much larger than they are today.  So perhaps Heyerdahl was not far off, except for his timing!  (by thousands of years)

On our last full day of the trip, we were offered several excursions that we could pick from.  Four others and I chose to go on a 4.5 mile hike to 3 different “caves” which were along the coast.  Now, I had been in caves before, no problem, but these were lava tubes.  I had been in lava tubes before, and really didn’t like doing that for a variety of reasons.  So I did the first one, but skipped the other 2.  Luckily, we were outfitted with hard hats and flashlights, which were definitely needed.    

This is the terrain that we hiked through.  It reminded me of the coastal area of Hawaii big island.

The highlight for me was a visit to Ahu Te Peu, which is a very important but unrestored ahu.  It looks the way it did when it was abandoned.  Here are some toppled moai.  Note the difference between the lighter brown of the volcanic tuff of the moai with the darker and harder local volcanic stone of the ahu.

As we walked around to the back side (ocean facing) of the ahu, we encountered a really nice megalithic wall, similar to the Ahu Vinapu wall. 

From what I could tell, very few ahu walls on the island were of this quality.  That may not mean that someone else built them.  Another mystery!