The stone heads of Easter Island

The stone heads of Easter Island have cast an almost magical spell on those who have seen them. Though often eyeless, they still gaze along the shores of the island. What were they build for and who were the artisans of these mysterious creations?

Philip Coppens

It was Easter, 1722. The Dutch Admiral Jacobs Roggeveen had discovered a new island in the Pacific Ocean. He named it Easter Island. Near the coastline, his crew saw small boats of the local people setting course to greet his boat. On the mainland, he saw gigantic heads protruding along the coast line. Roggeveen gave this description of the heads: “the steon heads surprised us. We could not understand how these people, who do not have load-bearing wood to make machinery, or strong rope, succeeded in erecting these statues, statues that measure ten metres in height and width.” Roggeveen had just added one more entry in the growing list of mysteries – the more Westerners travelled the globe, the more enigmas they came across. The type of diplomacy used when liaising with the local people often meant that no further knowledge was easily recorded.
Roggeveen himself felt he had found a quick answer to “his” mystery. He chopped off the head of one statue, in the supposition that the heads were not really made of stone, but of clay, covered with a coating of seashells. But shortly afterwards, Roggeveen had to disappear from the island: one local had accidentally been shot dead and a further ten or more people were killed when two people were found stealing.

It lasted until 1770 before the Spanish decided to send an expedition in search of this island that had been left to its own devices for the past five decades. The expedition proved that the stone heads were definitely “stone” heads. But the mystery remained. The local population had to contend with great tribulations between 1770 and 1774. Many statues had also fallen from their bases in 1774. James Cook identified that the only hill on the island was actually a volcano and identified it as the main cause for the destruction that had occurred by 1774. Cook also concluded that the current inhabitants of the island were not the creators of the heads.
But who was? 200 years later, Erich von Däniken speculated that the statues were the work of extraterrestrial beings. These beings were believed to have been stranded on the island and with nothing better to do, they had begun to erect these statues. Von Däniken argued that the local population, with the primitive tools they had at their disposal, were unable to create the heads. His was just one opinion amongst several. Others believed that the statues were millennia old, the last remnants of a lost civilisation, Mu, the Pacific Ocean colleague of Atlantis.
There were more conservative views. Cook and other expedition leaders concluded that the platforms on which the heads stood were used for funerals. The statues were also named after former rulers of the local people. No further information was learned from the local people, if only because those were exported from the island as slave labour. In 1877, only 111 people were still living on the island.

The origin of almost 1000 stone heads has thus become difficult to assess. They measure between two and 11 metres high and all have the same appearance: a long shaped head with an upper torso, a chin and long ears, with arms along the body or arms that rest on the stomach. Some statues still contain eyes, made in white and red stone and coral. Even fewer heads have a “pukao” on their head, a type of hat. The name originated from reports of the first visitors, who had spotted certain local people with a headdress made of red feathers. All statues gaze towards the land, even though many of the statues stand very close towards the sea.

In the 20th century, an answer to their age was given. Archaeologists learnt that the first people had come to the island between the 4th and 7th century AD. The platforms were constructed shortly afterwards, with the statues beginning to rise after 1000 AD. No more statues were erected after 1680, the result of society collapsing, caused by or resulting in warfare. Conclusion: the statues were constructed over a 500 year period – meaning that on average, two heads were erected each year.
The stone used for the heads originated from the inner core of the Rano Rarku volcano. Hundreds of empty spaces remained after the statues had been removed from the site. Close to 400 statues still remain inside the quarry. One unfinished statue is labelled “El Gigante”. It measures 20 metres tall and weighs 270 ton. Even though the outer layer of the quarry is very hard, the interior stone is hardly more durable than chalk and thus easily modifiable. It is this difference in stone that probably lead to Roggeveen’s wrong conclusion.
How were the stones quarried? Several pointed stones were still in situ in the quarry; they seemed to be the likely tools that had been used. Thor Heyerdahl tried to recreate the stone heads in situ. Six men worked for three days, resulting in a stone head that was five metres high. It was argued that it would take a team of six people one year to create a giant statue – meaning that the entire production of the stones could be the result of just twelve people, making two statues per year – this 500 years long.
Several traces of tracks from the quarry to the various locations of the statues remain visible, some of them ten kilometres long. What is equally clear is that the largest statues stand closest to the quarry. Though it was no doubt because more effort was required in moving them, at the same time, the statues were quite fragile and might not have survived the longer journeys.
The first researchers believed that the island had always been without trees, but more recent research has shown that trees were present on the island. Several possible techniques have thus been recreated in an attempt to see how the statues could be moved. The first efforts caused damage to the heads, but soon, techniques that involved the use of wooden carriers, resulted in heads being moved over a distance of fifty metres in two minutes. Later efforts actually involved putting the statues on their back, rather than moving them erect. These efforts, it was felt, were probably how the original statues had been moved to their final destination.

As to who were the artisans came from, that question was also posed by Thor Heyerdahl. He doubted the assumption that they had come from the west, the direction of Australia. Heyerdahl felt they originated from Southern America – specifically Peru. Archaeologists could not support this theory, as they stated that the Peruvian people did not possess sea-worthy craft that would reach Easter Island. Heyerdahl specifically wanted to challenge this argument and thus organised the Kon Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he used a traditional Southern America ship in his effort to reach Easter Island. Heyerdahl’s voyage lasted 101 days, covering 6000 miles, showing that the ship was definitely sea-worthy. Nevertheless, Heyerdahl did not make it to Easter Island, but Tahiti. But there was more serious critique. It was argued that the design used by Heyerdahl post-dated the Spanish conquest of Southern America. Furthermore, the ship had a sail. The ship was also dragged 100 km dragged from the shore before the ship itself was allowed to sail on its own power. This was necessary as the strong currents hitting the shores did not allow the ship to leave the coastal waters. These currents pushed the ships northwards, towards Panama – not westwards, towards Easter Island. Heyerdahl’s expedition was the first of a series. But all of them ended up in Tahiti – not one ever made it to Easter Island. But this lead to a new question. If the currents always pushed ships towards Tahiti, why were there no signs of Southern American contacts on those islands? The implied answer was that it meant that the Southern Americans never undertook any type of voyages – not to Tahiti, or anywhere else.
Nevertheless, it is true that a certain amount of plants on Easter Island do have a Southern American origin. It was such evidence that inspired Heyerdahl and others to argue the Southern American origins-theory. But it was then shown that at least one of these plants was taken to the island more than 30,000 years ago – by animals. Another plant had been spread across the islands of the Pacific Ocean via it drifting on the currents. The only proof left to Heyerdahl was the presence of the potato on the island. Though it is enigmatic, there is no proof that it was transported there by human beings. It might have been transported by clinging on to birds, who thus transported it to the island and thus introduced it. One anomaly is just that: an anomaly, not proof positive that the opposite therefore has to be true. As a result, it was clear that the likelihood that southern Americans had reached Easter Island became less and less possible.

Evidence that the population of Easter island did actually originate from Polynesia was discovered on the island of Pitcairn, 2000 km west of Easter Island. 1790 traces of a Polynesian influence were discovered there – but the most important aspect that was present on the island was the presence of giant heads, erected on platforms. Unfortunately, the earliest colonists had destroyed these heads.
When Heyerdahl proposed his alternative approach, little was known about Polynesia. Heyerdahl lived under the assumption that no technological awareness had ever existed on those islands. Fifty years later, that situation is vastly different. David Hatcher Childress is one in a growing number of authors that has identified major monuments that exist on the Polynesian islands. These construction projects are on an equal scale of the stone heads of Easter Island – though still far less known. DNA research of skeletons, dated from 1100 to 1868, have revealed similarities with Hawaii and the Chatham Islands, near New Zealand. It was the proof many scientists were waiting for. In the end, Heyerdahl himself toned down the Southern American origin-theory.

Still, mysteries of Easter Island remain. What did the stone heads have purpose-wise? But what about the enigmatic writing rongorongo? The language was first seen by a priest, Joseph Eyraud, the first non-local person to settle on the island. Though his mission, starting in 1864, failed, he nevertheless was able to detail insights into the lifestyle of the local people before most of them were sold of as slaves. Polynesia did not have a written language, whereas Southern America had. However, archaeologists now believe that the language actually postdates the arrival of the Spanish on the island. No traces of the language have been found inscribed on any of the archaeological monuments. The language is uniform, which is even more evidence of a recent origin, as languages evolve over time.
Even though the language might be of recent origin, its translation should nevertheless be able to shed more insight into the life of the local people – and perhaps even on the stone heads. Unfortunately, all attempts to decipher the language have so far failed. Though there have been some close calls. In 1886, the American sailor William Thomson discovered two tablets and spoke to an 83-year old inhabitant, who stated that he could read the language, but that he would not: the Church had forbidden the language. After a bribe, the elder person was willing to look at the tablets, even though he was unwilling to touch them. After having read them, the man, accompanied by a few other locals, sang a fertility song. But because no confirmation that this was indeed the contents of this text, Thomson’s statements were received with the customary level of scepticism. As alcohol was the material used in the bribe, we should not look to disparagingly towards the sceptics.

It is clear that the mystery of Easter Island has lost some of its enigmatic fringes in recent years. Nevertheless, the final word has not been spoken about the meaning of the stone heads – or any further details on the people that seem to have emigrated ever further east, over many centuries – if not millennia.

This article originally appeared in Frontier Magazine 7.3 (May/June 2001)