Easter Island - October 2008

 

 Ahu Tongariki is the largest ahu on the eastern coast of Easter island with fifteen moai looking towards the Rano Raraku crater.

At Tongariki, like other sites on the island, the moai had been toppled by warring clans. An earthquake in Chile in 1960 sent a huge tsunami towards Easter Island that scattered the moai and their pukao. Moai weighing an average of 30 tons were carried over 100 yards inland. Fortunately the site had been photographed extensively a few months before the tsunami and the photographs proved invaluable when the site was later restored.

The restoration of Tongariki was completed with financial support and equipment from the Japanese company Tadano from 1991-1993.

Tadano's website says...'Easter Island’s former Governor Sergio Rapu commented to people in Japan; “We’ve been dreaming to see the Moai standing. If only we had a crane…” Governor Rapu’s words struck one person who was working for TADANO. He suddenly came up with an idea renovating the statues with a TADANO crane.'

In the second photo you can see the 15 Tongariki moai and a single standing moai, known colloquially as the 'Traveling Moai'.

Shawn McLaughlin of the Easter Island Foundation kindly emailed me to say...

It was indeed on loan to the Osaka Trade Fair as partial exchange for the use of pictures and footage of the re-construction of Tongariki (helped by the donation of a 50-ton crane by the Tedano company of Japan) for use in a series of advertisements. This moai among very few others, was felt it could be loaned because it was not in an original or traditional place (and still isn’t), although it likely belonged to the original Tongariki ahu before the tsunami of 1960 destroyed the then toppled state of the ceremonial site – and because this moai was one of two Thor Heyerdahl used as transport experiments in the late 1950s. The base of this statue, like its counterpart in the courtyard of the island’s museum, was damaged as a result and, because the statue wasn’t permanently anchored in its location, was a good candidate to be loaned.

A beautiful view of the Tongariki site, the coast  and the Motu Marotiri islet

A view of Tongariki from the roadside

Posing with the moai of Tongariki

Ahu Tongariki with the fifteen moai

Late afternoon with a fallen moai and Tongariki in the background

A photo of the Tongariki moai with pukao showing some carving detail

Leaving Easter island on my LAN flight to Santiago and on to Peru