Five hundred years ago, on the southern slopes of Easter Island's Rano Raraku volcano, the Rapa Nui people skillfully carved ...

The islanders call them "moai," and they have puzzled ethnographers, archaeologists, and visitors to the island since the first European explorers arrived here in 1722. In their isolation ...

At Anakena seven potbellied moai stand at attention on a 52-foot-long stone platform—backs to the Pacific, arms at their sides, heads capped with tall pukao of red scoria, another volcanic rock.

ROCK IT, standing up ... is the question of how the Rapanui people transported the multi-ton statues, or moai, from their quarries to their final ceremonial ahu sites around the island.

Scoria is lighter in weight than the volcanic rock used to carve the moai grey bodies and, therefore, a bit easier to transport and place atop them. Eyes were thought to be the final addition to ...

The island is famous for its enormous stone statues known as moai. The statues, which are carved from volcanic rock, stand at 13 feet high and weigh 10 metric tons (around 22,000 pounds ...