Easter Island Moai

Easter Island is famous for its 887 statues, called Moai. Some of the statues are set deep into the ground, and the heads on the statues are disproportionately large, causing many people to think of them as just big heads. But the bodies are there — in many cases, underground.



There are also petroglyphs on the bodies that have been preserved below the soil level, and found during recent excavation efforts by The Easter Island Statue Project (EISP).



This is an image from a previous excavation that shows the scale of the statues and how deep they were buried.



Note: visitors are prohibited from climbing on the Moai; the expedition pictured appears to predate the EISP and the current practice of conservation.